Work Text
One
Distant Memory
I was drunk when I bumped into him. Two double rum and cokes at the concert, two whiskey sours at the bar after, and the high of the night itself buzzing under my skin. I had just turned from the bar, third drink in my hand, when I felt a warm body bump against mine.
“Sorry, love.”
Dark eyes met my unfocused ones, and he gave me a cocky, lopsided smirk when he saw me.
I thought I was hallucinating. This had to be a trick of the light, or some kind of dream. I had just left his concert.
He took his drink from the other bartender behind me at that moment, and then clinked his glass against mine, saying, “Cheers.”
He never took his eyes from mine, and, like his music, it made me feel like I had a pulse all over my body.
“Cheers,” I returned, because if I was lucid-dreaming, I wanted to take full advantage of it.
With no warning but another smirk, he leaned forward, his lips practically brushing my own hair against my ear, and asked, “Come here often?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I returned easily, staying close to him– as if to speak over the music– but I liked feeling the warmth from his body, smelling the cigarette smoke and mint and gel on him.
“Only the pretty ones,” he took a lock of my red-blonde hair and tugged on it once, twice, and his chunky ring glinted in the low light of the bar. I noticed then that he had already drained his drink and gestured for another, and by the look in his eyes, he was possibly as drunk as I was. “What brings you out tonight?”
The familiar, accented lilt to his voice made me practically shiver with desire– my eyes staring hungrily at that boyishly cocky smirk on his lips– and I coyly replied, “Just went to a concert.”
The slight lift of his eyebrows and the flash of understanding in his eyes were almost undetectable, but I noticed– and he inched that much closer to me, practically closing the space between us. He knew I was a fan. He must have also known he could have complete control over me if he wanted it.
“What about you?” I asked, sipping my drink, our eyes never parting.
“The same, actually,” he said, taking a drink as well.
I nodded, as if this was a surprising and interesting fact, feeling the drunken buzz and flirtatious high heighten the pull to just. Touch. Him.
I had never felt such immediate and intense attraction and chemistry to a person before. I mean, I guess it wasn’t that immediate– I had found him attractive for years, obviously– but for it to materialize so wholly in real life was blowing my mind. Not to mention the fact that I could feel the attraction between us– so immediately being returned from him too– that I knew I was dreaming.
“Do you live ‘round here?”
His thigh was brushing the inside of mine, and my breath caught in my throat. This wasn’t real. This was unreal . I felt lightheaded from the insane rush of blood and electrification of my skin. He was touching me and I wanted more– now– and for some strange reason, he did too.
“I do,” I replied, as he inched even closer.
“Do you have whiskey at your place?” his leg was inching up between mine, and I wished I hadn’t worn jeans– couldn’t imagine how this would feel against my bare skin.
I nodded wordlessly.
“Would you have me ‘round?” his hand was on my waist, and his lips were on mine, and I felt my brain clouded from want– practically short-circuited as I gripped his neck, fingers tangled in the ends of his hair.
When we surfaced he was slightly breathless, but smirking at me. “Is that a yes?”
I nodded again.
Without another word, he took my hand and led me through the crowd, into the cool fresh air of January. I swayed slightly on my feet as he hailed a taxi, trying to wrap my mind around what was happening– around this impossible night I was living– but then he was guiding me into the back of a cab and I stopped thinking all together.
I gave the driver my address, and the words were barely out of my mouth before he was grabbing me insistently, his mouth on my neck, just below my ear, the quick release of his breath giving me goosebumps. I turned as much as I could in the backseat, grabbing the lapels of his leather jacket and bringing his lips to mine. His mouth fell open immediately, tongue darting against my own, tobacco and mint and whiskey, and I was pulling myself onto his lap.
Even through my jeans, I could feel how hard he was against me, and I practically moaned as he nipped at my lower lip, simultaneously cupping my ass. I ground against him, and smiled at his half-hooded eyes as he groaned.
“Cheeky,” he muttered admiringly, before burying his hands in my hair and pulling me down to kiss him, hard, taking all of my breath away.
When the driver cleared his throat we broke apart, hot and breathless. Without thinking, he grabbed a wad of bills from his pocket and handed them to the driver, saying, “Cheers,” before pulling me out of the cab.
He clutched at me on the sidewalk again, and I could feel just how much he wanted me, making me go momentarily blind.
“I hope you’ve got your key ready,” he said, his lips close enough to mine that we kissed with each word he spoke. “Otherwise we might need to do something illegal.”
I laughed and pulled him up the front steps of my building, grabbing my keys from my bag as we went. His hands were on me as I fumbled with opening the front door, and then as I led him up the two flights to my place. By the time we got into my dark and quiet apartment, he was desperate, and he kicked the door shut behind us as I grabbed him to me, forcing his jacket off.
We could see each other by the streetlights filtering in through my windows, and his eyes were glittering, half mast with desire, and I wanted him so badly it almost hurt, but my alcohol-sogged brain also knew that if this was a dream, I had to make the most of it.
“Whiskey, you said?”
He looked delirious and drugged as I pulled away and spoke, instead of continuing our entanglement.
He stared as I backed away from him.
“Or, did you really come here for something else?” As I asked the question, I pulled my own jacket off, then my shirt, casually started unbuttoning my jeans.
I kicked my shoes off as I began walking towards the bedroom, throwing a glance over my shoulder and, looking like a horny puppy, he followed.
When I woke up I felt awful. Not only was I ridiculously hungover, I felt disoriented– like I couldn’t tell what time of day it was, or like I was missing something vital that I couldn’t put my finger on.I sat up slowly, one hand pressed to my head, and looked around my room.Sunlight streamed in through the windows– I hadn’t pulled any of my blinds down the night before– and it seared my skull. My blankets were rumpled and smelled faintly of– cigarette smoke? Cologne?The memory of my own dream hit me like a freight train. Alex Turner, picking me up at a bar and taking me home to my own bed to fuck me senseless after I attended his concert. If it wouldn’t have hurt my skull so badly, I would have laughed out loud.The combination of too much alcohol and an amazing Arctic Monkeys concert had simply made my subconscious create a very vivid sex dream of my number one celebrity crush. That wasn’t that weird.But, God, it was so real . It smelled like cigarettes and a man in my room– and God knows I hadn’t had a man in my room in months! I felt like I had actually been fucked, tired and slightly sore and satisfied . That wasn’t normal for a sex dream right?Shaking the bewilderment from my mind, I got out of bed and searched for my phone. Usually it was charging on my nightstand every night, but it was nowhere to be seen.Finally, I found it in my bag, which was thrown on my living room floor next to my jacket and shoes…
Did I get undressed in the living room?
God, I must have been very drunk, I thought.I saw I had about 10 text messages and missed calls from my best friend, Bri. They were all of the same nature, asking me where I went in the bar, if I was okay, if I had left without her, and that she ran into her ex and they were leaving together to probably have sex because she was drunk and don’t be mad! Quickly, I shot her a text and told her I was fine, awake, and very hungover, and that I got home fine, and was she okay?Still trying to shake the realness of my dream from my thoughts, I started the process of divesting myself of my hangover. I brushed my teeth and chugged three glasses of water, ate some toast, took a shower and washed away the remnants of fatigue and sex dreams and too much alcohol.By the time I was dressed in real clothes, I felt much better, and I ventured into the bleary winter sunlight to get a coffee. It was late afternoon by then, and my Brooklyn neighborhood was a buzz of families and couples and friends, enjoying the beautiful Sunday. I sat in the window of a cafe with my coffee, trying to soak up some reality, but I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about him. Or, the dream of him.There’s nothing like the disappointment of waking up from an amazing dream, only to find out none of it’s real. It would have been better to just go without it, so you wouldn’t know what you were missing. Why couldn’t I have just gone to the concert, gone to the bar with Bri, and then moved on with my life? Now I was going to have this lingering phantom of sex with Alex Turner to disappoint me for the rest of the day because it wasn’t real.But God , did I want it to be.Desperate, I got a second coffee to go, and spent the rest of the day writing. I was in the process of completing a book of personal essays, but I couldn’t focus on the essay I was in the middle of. I did some free writing instead, and then even tried to write out my dream– hoping it would get me out of my own head. But I couldn’t focus on anything– I was feeling particularly disoriented and flustered still, like I was forgetting something I needed to do– and I figured my hangover was just lingering too long.Around ten o’clock I called it a day. I ran myself a bubble bath and brought in a new book to distract myself. After about twenty minutes, it started to work, I began to lose myself in the story and forget about anything else.Until a sound made me sit up straight in the tub, perking my ears toward the door.No.It had to have been the apartment next door or something.I listened.Knock knock knock.Water splashed up the side of the tub as I jumped. Someone was actually knocking on my door? Who would do that without texting or calling first?Chucking my book onto the bathroom floor, I grabbed my towel and got out of the bathtub. I remembered that Bri had left with her awful ex boyfriend the night before, and realized that it could possibly be her– possibly heartbroken.I didn’t even dry myself off properly, just wrapped the towel around my body tightly as I ran to the door. Without thinking twice– sure it was her– I released the chain and threw the door open, about to ask her if she was okay when–My mouth fell open.“Sorry to drop in unannounced,” Alex Turner said with that cocky smirk from my dream, clearly drunk. “But I never got your number, love.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Two
Crawling Back to You
Given the circumstances– Alex Turner showing up at my door, the sex dream turning out to be real sex– I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it, and I probably stared at him like an idiot for far too long.“Am I interrupting?” he asked, looking me up and down, my towel, my damp hair in a wild bun, my body still dripping and soapy in spots. “Or can I join you?”Wordlessly, I stepped aside for him to come in.
This is real, I told myself over and over. This is real. This is
amazing
.
“I hope you’re not mad,” he said, and he was taking his jacket off, like he was as comfortable as could be in my tiny Brooklyn apartment– as if he had been here a million times. “I had a radio interview early and I was late– I didn’t think to leave a note.”I couldn’t form words.
I had had sex with Alex Turner. I had had real,
mind-blowing
sex with Alex Turner.
“You are mad,” he said, and his words were slightly slurred. He was drunk, and he was mistaking my silence for annoyance, laughing at me slightly.I shook my head.“Look, I’ll be honest,” he said, walking up to me, taking my towel in his hands, pulling me close. He smelled like liquor and cigarettes. “I did think it would be just a one night thing– that’s not that unusual for me between girlfriends, but… My God, I couldn’t get you out of my head all day.”“Me either,” I finally murmured back, because it was true.He smiled, so lopsided, so beautiful, and my whole body went weak from the rush of blood that it evoked. Leaning in, he kissed me softly– too softly, I thought– and I practically vibrated with nervous energy, but thank God we weren’t talking anymore, because I couldn’t find any coherent words.
But what he was beginning to do, that was coming much more easily.
Gently, he tugged my towel off, and it fell to the floor. I had one split second of self-consciousness, before I gave it up for the heat between us, pressing my naked body against his fully clothed one, making him let out a breath with a sound like a growl.His arms were around me, pressing me even harder to him, lifting me into his arms, guiding my wet legs to wrap around him, and carrying me to the bedroom.We tumbled onto the bed together, and I pushed his t-shirt off before he fought me, descended onto me with his mouth, kissing me ferociously, his tongue between my lips, deliciously violent in its searching. My hands were grabbing at anything they could reach, his bare chest, his neck, his greasy, perfect hair, his hard dick beneath his jeans. But his mouth was trailing my neck, moving downward, and he was intent.“I’ve been thinkin’ about this all day,” he breathed against me as he kissed a trail to my nipples, slowly sucking on each one, making me squirm. “About doing this to you.”His teeth nipped at the skin below my navel, moving down further, making me arch my back in need. He looked up at me briefly and smiled, before focusing on planting the tiniest, softest kisses on the insides of my thighs. I let out a soft moan, needing so much more, but he was taking his time.“I thought about how nice it would be to make you feel like this,” he said, his lips moving against my vagina with each word, making me squirm and release a breathless sigh. “Nice and slow.”His tongue darted against the pulse between my legs, and I cried out, could feel him smile at my reaction. He did it once more, making me buck against him slightly, and then his tongue was deep inside me, making me gasp and open my eyes wide. He worked his tongue against me so firmly that I cried out once more, sure this would be quick, but then he slowed down, making the arousal mount and careen, making me practically pant and clutch his hair in desperation.Suddenly he was back up, kissing his way to my mouth, smiling at the look of incredulity that must have been on my face as he kissed me.Without warning, I pulled him down to the bed, climbed on top of him, and he looked surprised, but said, “There she is.”I smiled evilly as I undid his belt and zipper, pulling his jeans off. When he was completely naked he put a hand sweetly along my jaw, stroking the skin of my face, but I ignored him. Instead, I lowered myself to his erect penis and took the whole thing in my mouth without warning, not hesitation.“Fuck,” he groaned, unintentionally grabbing a fistful of my hair.I teased him with my tongue, going faster, listening to his audible reactions, listening to him climb higher towards the end, before slowing down and stalling him.He groaned in frustration and I trailed kisses up to his mouth, smiling sweetly.He sat up abruptly and pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him, his dick against me, and I gasped in surprise. The moment had turned so suddenly intense, the heat between us almost too much for any teasing or jokes, and he pressed his forehead against mine, his breathing shallow as he held me tightly against him.Slowly, I began to move up and down, grinding against his naked penis, and his lip curled back in pleasure, our foreheads still touching.“‘Ave you–” he panted, his eyes practically closing. “‘Ave you got something?”I was shaking, but I nodded, “The nightstand.”He leaned back slightly, but kept an arm around me as he opened the drawer of my nightstand, rummaging around for an agonizingly long moment for a condom. He ripped it open and slipped it on quickly, before meeting my eyes– our gaze more intimate than all our nakedness pressed together.His eyes asked permission, so I responded by sitting up and lowering myself onto him, our lips meeting hurriedly as he entered me fully with a hiss of pleasure into my mouth.I moved up and down slowly on him, building the friction and heat between us, watching as he leaned back in pleasure, groaning. His eyes took in my nakedness, and he reached forward to run his hand between my breasts, down my stomach, and then wedge in between us, his deft fingers coming to rest directly where I needed him to. He moved his fingers gently against me, the pressure changing with my whimpers, and he licked his lips as he watched me, enjoying the current of pleasure rising with my blood.“Oh, God, yes,” I whispered as he worked faster, pressing against me firmly, and I gained the rhythm with him, in perfect synchronicity, both of us poised to get the other one off.“I want to make you come,” he told me, and God, was I close before he said that, but his words sent me over the edge.Faster, I ground against him, until the pressure inside of me came to a peak, my orgasm bursting like firelight behind his fingers, around his dick, against his mouth as he swallowed the sounds I cried out. I rode the heat out on top of him, the pleasure being almost too much to bear, until his nonsense words and sounds also reached their climax and he came hard and fast with one final expletive groan.Our bodies were still, but also not. We were no longer thrusting, grinding, pulsing, but both of us shook from the build and release, both panting practically in unison, both of us still wrapped around each other.“All right?” he asked tentatively, after we both regained our breath, leaning back and looking up to meet my eyes.I nodded and smiled, breathlessly saying, “Great.”He laughed and kissed me once, before we both began to untangle ourselves.He stood up and set about divulging himself of the condom discreetly, and I wiped any remaining soap or water off of my legs with my sheets, before pulling one over my naked body. He pulled his briefs on and then lay down next to me atop the sheets.“You’re going to think I’m a knob, but I ‘ave to ask you summat.” I waited expectantly before he continued, asking, “What’s your name?”I laughed out loud, before saying, “Kat.”“And what do you do, red cat?” he asked, taking a lock of hair that had escaped my messy bun and tugging it.“I’m a writer. And you are…?”“Alex,” he replied.“Nice to meet you.”“Pleasure.” We smiled stupidly at each other for a moment before he sat up and said, “How’s about a drink? Whiskey, right?” Referring to last night’s talk of whiskey at my place.“I–” I started, feeling my pale, freckled face start to turn pink. “I-I don’t have any.”He faked a gasp. “Red cat! You lied to me!”I scrunched up my face with a smile.
“You lied to get me in
bed
!” he pretended to be aghast. “I’ve been taken advantage of!”
“
Were you
taken advantage of?” I questioned coyly.
“No,” he laughed, getting up to see what kind of alcohol I did have. “I came crawling back to you.”When he returned with a cheap bottle of pinot grigio I actually laughed out loud. “Sorry,” I amended, sitting up in bed. “I finished the whiskey last night– before the concert.”He didn’t even bring glasses, just unscrewed the top and took a swig, then said down on the bed and handed it over. “Had to get drunk to enjoy the bastards?”I raised the bottle to him in mock agreement and smirked, taking a sip of wine.“I don’t usually do things like this,” he said, embarrassed, when I gave the bottle back to him.“I thought you said this wasn’t that unusual for you,” I reminded him, playful.He took a long pull from the bottle and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were slightly unfocused and bleary when he looked back to me and said, “I meant come back the next night.”
There was a beat of silence.
“You fuck your fans often though?”
He practically did a wine spit take, but recovered quickly and said, “Can’t say that I ever have, actually.”I shrugged and took the bottle from him, “Glad I’m your first,” and drank with a smile.He looked at me like I had said something surprising, or amazing, like he couldn’t quite believe what was in front of him, and he asked, “Where did you come from?”I knew it was rhetorical, but I answered literally, to be a smart ass: “New Jersey.”
“Do
you
do this often, red New Jersey?” he asked.
“What? Let rock stars into my apartment for sex?” I countered. “Yes. Mick Jagger was here last week.”He laughed and took the bottle from me, drinking again.“What do you write then?” he asked, standing and walking around my tiny bedroom. He poked around my desk by the window, looking at pictures and postcards tacked around the window frame.“Essays,” I told him, sitting up and grabbing a giant t-shirt from the back of my desk chair and pulling it on. “Sometimes editorials or articles for different magazines.”“What have you published?” he turned and looked at me, and when he took another drink from the bottle I saw it was nearly halfway done.“I wrote a series throughout college– a god-awful fantasy romance that I still get a check for every month,” I replied, shrugging. “And smaller pieces here and there. I’m working with an editor on a book of personal essays right now.”“Will I make it into your book?” he asked, sitting on the bed once more.I took the bottle from him and drank it past halfway. “I don’t need to drop your name in my book.”He cocked an eyebrow and smiled, saying, “Not even to talk about the best fuck of your life?”I shrugged, “I’d give it a four out of five.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” he returned, and pulled me toward him, swooping in to take my breath away with a very suggestive kiss.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Three
Knee Socks
The wine and sex must have gotten to us, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the morning with Alex Turner as my big spoon. I was hungry, in desperate need of coffee, and it was Monday, so I definitely had to get some work done, but for the moment, I stayed where I was, thinking.
There was a lot going on in my mind. It was a lot in general, and I finally had a minute to process it in the moments of quiet.
First, what did either of us want from this? Probably just sex, right? Alex Turner wasn’t about to ask me to be his girlfriend. He was going to get back on the road and I would return to my life of writing and normalcy, and maybe we’d meet again when he was back in New York.
And that was a
big maybe
.
Second, I didn’t want a boyfriend. I had only gotten out of a six year relationship less than a year prior and it had been a painful mess I didn’t even want to think about– and I was enjoying being single and independent for the first time since freshman year of college, besides. Enjoying the solitude of not having to depend on someone else, or give my life up to them, or balance on the precipice of being blissfully happy and having my world shattered. And being able to just have sex with an Arctic Monkey when the opportunity to arose.
And, while, yes, I had found Alex Turner attractive for years, I didn’t want a relationship with him. I wasn’t naive enough to think that would work out, even if we tried. We came from very different worlds, and I don’t think either of us would pretend that those worlds could even sort of fit together comfortably. There was no way an attempt at a real relationship with him wouldn’t end badly– and with me being the one most hurt. I knew we were both good with just having fun and then forgetting about it, and that was okay by me.I would put the memory of sex with a famous rockstar in my back pocket and save it for a rainy day.
Or to tell my grandchildren when they didn’t believe I was once cool.
Alex stirred behind me, waking me from my thoughts.“Mornin’,” he murmured into my hair, pulling me against him, snuggling into me.“Morning.”“How’s about some breakfast?” he asked.
“I hope you’re not asking me to cook,” I laughed.
“Let’s go out,” he said, rousing himself further, sitting up in just his underwear. “Anywhere you’d like.”
I have never said no to going out for breakfast food, so that was how I found myself having eggs and coffee with Alex, at my favorite Williamsburg cafe, thirty minutes later. I had anticipated good food and lots of coffee, and more witty banter, but I hadn’t expected everything that came with getting breakfast with
Alex Turner
.
In Brooklyn, New York, there were plenty of people that would recognize Alex upon sight– there were enough Arctic Monkeys fans within each block at any given time– but anyone who didn’t recognize him outright, knew he was famous just by looking at him. Sitting there in his fitted jeans and leather jacket, with his sunglasses on inside and his pompadour in only slight disarray from sleep– even the way he carried himself screamed
FAMOUS PERSON
. People stared and even snapped pictures as we sat, and I suddenly wished I had done more than throw on jeans and a hoodie and put my hair in a ponytail.
“I’m leavin’ for Brazil today,” he said suddenly, just as we were finishing up our food and onto our third or fourth cups of coffee. “I ‘ave a flight out of JFK at two.”
“Enjoy the sunshine,” I replied sincerely, unsurprised at the news that he would be leaving.“You should come with me,” he returned, completely nonchalant.I froze slightly, my coffee halfway to my mouth. “What?”“You’re a writer,” he said with a smile. “You could write anywhere. And be with me.”I set my coffee mug down and shook my head. “I’m not going to Brazil.”“Nah then, why not?”“I don’t know who you think I am,” I said very calmly. It was strange, like my brain split in half in that moment. Part of me very definitely wanted to go to Brazil with Alex, but another part of me– the vocal, controlling part of me– put up an angry defense mechanism and shut everything else out. “But I have no interest in being your tag along booty call groupie.”A look of hurt flashed across his face, and he took off his sunglasses, set them down on the table. “That’s not what I was askin’.”“Whatever you were asking then,” I continued gently, speaking from one friend to another. “I have a life here, and I’m not looking for it to change. I don’t want that.”He nodded. “All right, love. I understand.”
Was I letting Alex Turner
down
? No.
“Can I ‘ave your number then?”My eyebrows knit in confusion.
“Look, Red, just because you’re not going to be my Brazililan booty call groupie, or the like, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to
talk
to you from time to time.”
I smiled, saying, “I think that can be arranged.”“Or, you know, drop in when I’m in town,” he quipped cheekily, putting his glasses back on.I took a sip of coffee. “Naturally.”Alex left long before noon, and I was alone again. I felt far more content than I had after waking from my “dream”, and sat down at my desk for a productive day of work. We had parted at the cafe with a genuine hug and kiss on the cheek, and a promise that we’d talk, and I was content in knowing that it was probably the last I’d see of him other than another concert or some YouTube viewing. It had been fun and, again, I wasn’t naive.I thought this contentment would help me to settle back into my routine, but I sat staring at my computer for an hour, unable to write a word.I put on music. I took a shower. I ate something for lunch. I changed into pajama shorts and a tank top, knee socks, trying to get comfortable. I changed the music. I changed it again. I put on the Arctic Monkeys. I ate something for dinner. I googled the Arctic Monkeys tour information. They were performing in Sao Paulo in three days, and then moving onto Chile, Buenos Aires, and then finishing in Mexico. I imagined blood orange sunsets and tequila on a beach. I imagined some Brazilian bombshell making Alex moan. I shut off my computer, shut off the music, and decided to go to bed.
By then it was midnight, and I had gotten absolutely no work done, had just floundered around all day, feeling like a ship without an anchor. It made me increasingly frustrated and annoyed.
He was gone, I was content, I wanted to be alone and focus on my work. Why couldn’t I just do that?I had just turned off the overhead lights in my bedroom for the white fairy lights around my bed frame. I lit some candles around my bed and settled into my pillows, flipping through my phone in the quiet winter night, hoping at least sleep would come easily.When my phone rang it was on silent, but I saw the name pop up and I felt my heart rocket into my ribcage.
Alex Turner FaceTime
I answered after a minute, holding the phone out in front of me. He looked just like I had left him this morning– his hair only slightly mussed after ten hours on a plane, his eyes bordering on tired and drunk. There was no light in the room he was in, except for the one coming from his phone, only darkness and quiet behind him, and he smiled when he saw me.“‘Allo Red Cat.”I rolled my eyes. “Did you drink United out of all their mini whiskey bottles?”“It was a long flight,” he slurred slightly.“I worry for your liver.”“I’m English, love– I don’t ‘ave a liver.”I laughed, saying, “I don’t think that’s how anatomy works.”“I missed you,” he said abruptly. “You should ‘ave come.”I rolled my eyes again, but I felt warm delight from his words that I immediately squashed. “You’ve known me two days, Alex.”How many girls did he play like this during any given week?“I feel like it’s been longer.”We were silent for a moment, staring at each other through the phone. Outside, it had begun to rain quietly, and the radiator in my bedroom had turned on, making the room suddenly too warm. I kicked my blankets off and nestled into my pillows further, suddenly sleepy and calm.“What are you wearin’, darlin’?” he purred.I cocked an eyebrow, pretending to be much calmer than the zap of electric heat I felt made me.
“Ooooh,” I replied with a half smile. “So it’s one of
those
phone calls?”
He gave a cocky smirk and said, “Let me see ya.”I lowered the phone to show him my outfit, my tank top with no bra, my shorts, my white socks.“Knee socks, huh?” he said.I brought the phone back up to my face and licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry, my heart pounding in anticipation.“I wish you were next to me right now,” he breathed.“Why?”“You know why,” he said almost gruffly, sounding impatient, making me smile. “I want to feel you again.”“Where?” I asked, touching my breast with my free hand, astounded at the power he had over me, at the sexual draw I felt to him without any thought at all. He drew in a sharp breath. “Here?” I moved my hand down to the top of my knee socks. “Here?” And then between my thighs. “Here?”“You don’t know what you’re doin’ to me, love,” his voice was all throaty, like he was choked up. I pulled my hand away and he let out a rush of anguished breath. “Don’t stop. Touch yourself again.”I shook my head. “You’re going to have to give me something to work with.”He didn’t really have to. I could have just stared at him on the phone, looking at me hazily, drunkenly, lustily, and it would have been enough.“You want me to tell you what I’d do to you?” he asked.“Be creative. I know you’re good with words.”He smirked, shifting himself to hold the phone more comfortably, and then said, “I don’t think I could take my time tonight.”“No?”“I want you naked right now,” he said.I balanced my phone on my nightstand, against a book, and sat up in front of it, pulling my shirt up over my head, listening to his breathing pick up as I wiggled out of my shorts. I left the socks on and laid back down.
“I’d kiss those lovely tits,” he said. “Tease you with my fingers.”
“M hm,” I closed my eyes, going dizzy with instant want.“How’m I doin’, love?” I grabbed fistfuls of the blankets underneath me, letting the feeling build with just his words, just his quiet, gruff voice. I nodded my approval. “You touching yourself?”“Uh uh,” I shook my head.“Fffuck,” he groaned.“What else you got?” I teased.“I’m already touchin’ myself, love,” he practically growled, and the rush of blood from his words was so sudden that I actually whimpered with no touch, hands still buried in my sheets. “It’s your turn.”“Make me,” I begged breathlessly.“Two fingers inside you,” he said gruffly. “‘Ow about that? Fuckin' you with just my fingers.”I licked my lips and let out a weak breath.“I’d pin you down,” he added suddenly. “Plunge my dick inside you– All of me– I can’t wait anymore.”I grabbed my own breasts, insistent, shaking my head at his words, eyes closed against the heat.“Talk to me,” he begged, and his breath was coming faster, I could see him working himself.“Fuck,” I gasped. “You would feel so good– I want you.”I watched him lick his lips, moving faster. “You’ve got me.”“I’d grab your hair,” I told him. “Pull your head back. Make you fuck me faster.”“Touch yourself.”I did, and immediately I whimpered at the further rise of need, consumed by all thought of him.“Yes, love,” he said, his eyes opened now, watching me intently. “Come on.”“Oh God.”“Touch yourself like I’d touch you,” he said, his words faltering against his own pleasure. “Hard and fast. Make yourself come for me.”“Faster,” I breathed.
“Oh, fuckin’ ‘ell,” he groaned. “Fuckin’. ‘
Ell
.”
My fingers worked so quickly, so firmly, with his words, that I was near climax almost immediately. His voice, his breathing, were already driving me over the edge anyway.“Don’t stop,” I cried out to both of us.“Come for me, love,” he commanded. “Let me see you come.”I was over the edge before his words were out, shuddering against my own fingers, the shout of his own orgasm making me spasm in pleasure. My heart pounded as the electricity fizzled under my skin, warm light behind my eyes, all over my body.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he sighed, catching his breath. “Those socks.”
I laughed, heart still beating against the inside of my chest.“Aren’t you glad I called?” I didn’t even need to look at him to know he was smirking when he spoke, but I looked anyway, because I couldn’t help it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Four
Why’d You Only Call me When You’re High?
Truthfully, it all became a bit annoying for a couple of reasons.
I hadn’t been this constantly horny since my first high school boyfriend, and that was just because making out itself had been brand new and exciting then. Not even my most recent relationship, at its best, had me this turned on just from
thinking
about him. And during the daylight hours, when we could only text back and forth sparingly, and I was supposed to be working, I was thinking about phone sex, or real sex, with Alex, and I couldn’t function this way. It was too distracting, too arousing, too unrealistic to maintain.
He also called every night– even if it wasn’t until three in the morning and he was all worked up from a show– but it didn’t matter. Whenever he called I was like a Pavlovian dog, instantly turned on, diving into the virtual sex with vigor, feeling relief from the hours of foreplay that had been spinning in my head all day.And he was always drunk. Without fail. And at first I just shrugged it off as part of his lifestyle on the road, but it was starting to get annoying. Couldn’t he have phone sex with me sober?It was all of these reasons– all of the building frustrations– that colluded into annoyance that shoved my arousal to the side when he called me after his show in Buenos Aires. I, myself, had had several glasses of wine already, and it only ignited my feelings into anger. I wasn’t writing these days, I was a horny mess, and I was waiting for his drunken phone call every night like a pathetic teenager. I did not sign up for this and it wasn’t what I wanted– Hadn’t I made that clear?I didn’t answer his call. Or the second. Or the third.He texted me.
All right, love?
I had recently looked up some British slang. Calling someone "love," where Alex came from, didn’t really mean anything intimate or endearing. It was like saying “All right, mate?”
Drunk?
I replied
Barely
Why do you only call me when you’ve had a few?
It’s hard to find a time where I haven’t had a few, was his eloquent reply.
Call me when you’re sober.
I was irrationally angry, I know. At least, the level of my anger was irrational and possibly misdirected, but I couldn’t squash it.He called again. Didn’t try to FaceTime, just called.It was a wrench in our usual routine– enough so that I answered.“Yes?”“All right?”“No,” I snapped. “I can’t drunkenly masturbate on FaceTime with you every night. I have a life.”
My “life” had consisted of me angry drinking wine on my couch alone all night, annoyed and watching reality TV
for a distraction, but he didn’t need to know that.
He laughed, making my anger inflame.He detected the rage and quickly amended, saying, “I’m sorry, Red, I didn’t mean to laugh. You’ve just got a way with words.”“Fuck off.”“We don’t need to do anything,” he said, and he actually sounded sincere, not cloying. “Let’s just talk.”Part of me was disappointed he wasn’t putting up more of a fight, but part of me was genuinely pleased.“‘Ow was your day?”It was hard to come down from the height of self-righteous anger, so I didn’t respond.“I’ll tell you ‘ow mine was,” he said. “Fuckin’ ‘ot.”The tone of his voice broke me and I laughed out loud.“My jeans are too tight for this amount of sweat,” he continued, cheered by my laughter. “I could barely get them off when I got to the hotel.”I waited a beat. “But they’re off now?”“‘Ey,” he warned jokingly. “None of that, Red, we’re just talking.”And we did talk. All night. About our time apart, about time before us, touching briefly on past relationships and work and our families. Alex talked about the South American shows, about the upcoming final show of the tour in Mexico City, about being excited to have some time to go back to writing and making new music. I talked about my essays, about annoying meetings with my editor, about wanting to write a novel again but not knowing how to get back into fiction. We were delirious with fatigue by the time the sun was coming up, but neither of us mentioned getting off the phone just yet.“I do miss you, darlin’.”He sounded so sleepy and vulnerable, so real, that it made my stomach drop. This was just sex, I reminded myself. And maybe friendship. But nothing more. Not romance or a boyfriend or love– or hurt. I wanted none of it, I told myself.“I miss you too,” I replied, because even with everything I tried to remind myself of, I did really miss him.“Come to Mexico,” he whispered, and I wondered if he was half asleep.
I
was slowly drifting off to sleep, but I was able to say, “Okay,” before I lost consciousness to the sound of his breathing.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Five
Certified Mind Blower
When I woke up I was sure, again, that I had dreamt an Alex encounter. But the text message from his manager’s assistant asking me for my passport information in order to book my ticket to Mexico City told me otherwise. I could be on the five o’clock flight, she informed me, and someone would pick me up at the airport when I landed.When I glanced out my window and saw the beginning flakes of snow falling, the dirty slush collecting in the streets, my notebooks and laptop sitting without a new word written in weeks, I didn’t think twice. I wanted to go to Mexico. I wanted the warmth and the sun, and after days and days of thinking about him, I wanted Alex. Badly.I threw clothes and swimsuits and make-up into a suitcase, and my laptop and phone into a carry-on, and I grabbed my passport and flip-flops to put on in the plane.When I was in the taxi, Alex texted me.
See you soon, beautiful girl
I didn’t know if I would last a six hour plane ride.
Even in the terminal it felt warmer than New York when I landed in Mexico, and I was grateful for my flip flops. I shed my jacket as I rolled my bags to arrivals, walking faster and faster to get to him. I was expecting a driver with a sign, to see Alex when I got to the hotel, so I was gobsmacked when I spotted him standing with everyone else waiting for pick-ups, t-shirt and jeans, goofy smile plastered on his face.
I ditched my bag and ran to him without thinking, catapulting myself into his arms like a fool.Honestly, I had been thinking about fucking him almost the entire plane ride– I couldn’t help it. Pavlovian response, remember? But when I jumped into his arms at that moment, there was nothing sexual about it. Instead, it was purely comfortable, purely content, just so fucking happy to see him and physically be in his arms, someone I’d only known in person for two days.“Missed me, did ya?” he said with a grin when I released him, and he swooped down to kiss me.It was innocent enough, until he snuck a hand up to cup one of my breasts over my shirt discreetly.I pulled away and smacked him, but God I wanted him all over again. We grabbed my things and went outside to the waiting car.It was dark out, and the ride to the hotel in the city was mostly highway, but I was too distracted to notice my surroundings very much.“I ‘ope you didn’t want your own room,” he said. “I took the liberty of assuming you’d sleep with me.”“So presumptuous.”“I figured you’d like a cuddle.”I laughed.“What d’you want to do while you’re ‘ere?” he asked, and though his tone wasn’t suggestive, he had crept a hand up my leg.“Don’t you have a concert?” I asked, heart beginning to thump slightly.“Not for a few days,” he was creeping his fingers up my stomach, looking at me as if we were just chatting in the backseat. I held my breath when he slid his whole hand beneath the waistband of my yoga pants, gently rubbing his fingers against me. “Anything you wanted to do?”My words must have faltered as I responded, trying to sound normal for the driver who was only feet away, saying, “M-Museums, maybe.” He was moving faster against me, and it was all I could do not to arch my back against him. I had been thinking about this for days without him really in front of me. “Explore the city.”“I love to explore,” he said with a smirk that made me want to smack him, as he sped up even more, so deftly he was undetectable from the front seat.It was too much to bear, so I had to retaliate. I grabbed the bulge of his growing erection just as discreetly, slowly rubbing as it got harder.His eyes fluttered and he licked his lips, once, twice, breathing slowly.Without warning, the car was stopping in front of a hotel, and without even batting an eye, he pulled his hands from my pants and helped me out of the car, grabbing my bags before the driver could and thanking him so genuinely– so calmly– that you never would have guessed at what had been going on in the back seat.Holding my hand, he escorted me into the vast, brightly lit lobby, and to a bank of elevators. He shoved me and my bags inside an empty one. When the doors closed and we were alone, he pulled the emergency stop button and dropped my things, pushing me up against the wall without warning.“Missed me, did ya?” I quipped back.But there was no smile on his face. He looked serious with physical want, and it made the bottom of my stomach fall out.He grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head, inserting his knee between my legs, where his fingers had been playing only minutes before. His lips were on mine, frantic, insistent, and I wrapped a leg around him, pulled him closer.A voice in Spanish came from the speaker, and then in English, asking us if we needed assistance.He groaned in annoyance, pulled away, and returned the button to its proper position.“All right, thanks,” he said to the voice.I throbbed with desire, twitching beside him, heart careening wildly in my chest. He cracked his knuckles as the elevator rose, nervous energy coming off of him in waves. I took his hand in mine and he looked at me, somewhat in surprise, but he stilled.When the elevator opened he took my things and guided me to the room by our still-entwined hands, slower now, somewhat relaxed. The room was dark, but he didn’t switch on the lights, just deposited my things on the floor and pulled me to him.“‘Aven’t ‘ad a drink all day,” he said in a whisper.I would have gasped, but he kissed me, insistent again, quickfire heat igniting between us, knocking me breathless. This was somewhat different than the other times, no teasing and lingering foreplay. We were both too far gone for that. His tongue was searching my mouth already, and it wasn’t enough. I yanked off his shirt, reaching for his buckle, fumbling, clumsy, lightheaded.He pulled my shirt off without a problem, moving to help me with his belt. As soon as his pants were off, he grabbed me, pulling me backwards, and we spilled back onto the bed.“God, I wanna tease ya, but I don’t think I’ll make it,” he groaned, pushing my pants off.“Don’t,” I sighed.He didn’t wait a second. He was pulling a condom on, fingers finding the center of my legs in one swift motion, making me cry out from the surprise of it.“Don’t?” he asked.“Please.”All those nights alone in my bed, with his words and lilted voice over the phone, all those long days of just thinking about this exact thing– it crashed into my brain in a sensory overload. It felt too good, it was too much to stand without immediate release.I had been expecting him to be quick– he had just said he would be– but he hesitated, his dick poised right between my legs.“What do you want me to do to you, Red?” he asked and, God, I could tell he liked this moment.“Fuck me,” I begged.He was inside of me immediately, groaning and doubling over, our bodies flush together. I cried out as he filled me up, grinding into him as he thrust. It felt like weeks of foreplay lighting my body in waves of pleasure, peaking and falling, and peaking stronger. I was blind with how good it felt, deaf, senseless, while everything was electrified all at once. All I knew were the places he touched me, and the ways that he touched me, and I covered my own mouth, afraid I would get too loud.He grabbed my wrist as I did this, and then the other, and pinned them into the bed above my head again. As he thrust into me, I could see him silhouetted by moonlight, and he was so intent, his eyes gazing down at me, that I did moan out loud, tightening around him.He was beginning to unleash his senseless cursing, rising in pitch and frequency, and I pushed him away suddenly.He pulled out of me in shock, his face asking a question before I grabbed him and pushed him backwards into the pillows. That smirk, taking place on his lips as understanding dawned on him.I straddled him, his hands sliding up my thighs, squeezing at my hips. “Look at you,” he said, his thumb rubbing the nipple of one breast before his hand went back to my waist.I eased him back into me and his eyes fluttered slightly. I ground my hips slowly, smiling as he gave into the feeling more and more, as my rhythm picked up speed.So much of me was consumed by his pleasure, by the moment we were locked in, that I was surprised when he reached between us, applying pressure to my clit with his fingertips, making me shudder.“Don’t stop,” he commanded, watching me falter, nodding as I kept my speed, feeling a boulder of perfect pressure build behind his hand.We rose together, a call and response of moans and groans, expletives and shudders, until I couldn’t take it anymore. He came loudly, trying to contain it, and the look on his face, the pulse of his body made me collapse against him, shuddering into my own orgasm. His hand kept working though, and it built an already powerful crescendo, making me shudder, making me cry out.When we pulled apart we didn’t move far, stayed pressed together on our sides. I allowed my heart and breath to slow, before I opened my eyes and found him watching me.“I’ve been waitin’ a long time to do that,” he said.“Me too,” I smiled, absently rubbing my knuckles against his chest.“Thank you for being ‘ere,” he said, so sweetly, so softly, I almost hadn’t heard him, and he leaned over to kiss my head.“Thank you for having me,” I propped myself up on my elbow.“Darlin’, you know I’ll ‘ave you any time.”
Just before midnight, we ate room service on our balcony, the lights of the city spread out below us. We shared french fries and enchiladas, sipping straight tequila from our mini bar. I had pulled on shorts and stolen one of his sky-blue t-shirts, and he was lounging in just a pair of old shorts, a balmy breeze blowing against our bare skin.
“You ‘appy you came?”“I am.”“Does this make you my groupie booty call?” he asked.I narrowed my eyes at him with a smirk. “Don’t you dare.”“I’m glad you came,” he said after a moment, and I looked up from the tequila bottle, trying to gauge how drunk he was. We were both definitely buzzing, but he looked more sincere than anything else, and it made my stomach clench in anxiety.“That horny?” I joked.He laughed but shook his head.I took a slug of tequila.“I like you, Red.”My heart was pounding again. This was getting way too sentimental, too romantic.“I like you too,” I said, my voice wavering. “But let’s keep this straight. I’m only here for the booze, and the sex.”He laughed, and asked, “Shall we go to the beach tomorrow?”“Don’t you have things to do?”“Not tomorrow, love,” he popped a fry in his mouth with a grin. “I’m all yours.”I nodded.“Are you mine?” he asked, gesturing for the tequila bottle.“For the beach, I’m yours.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Six
Mexican Coke
As it turned out, the beach was about five hours away by car, which Alex didn’t tell me until he woke me up at six a.m., on very little sleep, with pastries and coffee and Mexican Coca-Cola. We loaded ourselves into a tiny, red convertible, bathing suits on under our clothes, guzzling caffeine, sunglasses hiding our tired eyes.The sun hadn’t fully risen, and it was cool and gray as Alex navigated the highways out of Mexico City, one arm slung lazily on his open window. We listened to the Stones, and Oasis, and the Strokes, and we were quiet with comfortable sleepiness for about an hour.Two coffees in, I opened a coke and took a sip from the vintage bottle, starting to wake up, when Alex spoke.“Tell me about your book.”“It’s a book of essays,” I told him with a slight shrug. “You know, observations and experiences– me trying to be thoughtful and philosophical for my generation.”“No, the other one,” he took a drag from his cigarette and said.I groaned. “No.”He smiled. “Don’t think I didn’t google it, Red Cat,” he pressed, glancing over at me. “You might as well control the conversation.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “I had just started
college
. I was steeped in
Harry Potter
and
Twilight
and I was
immature
.”
“Go on.”“It’s about a girl named Arabella–”“Arabella?” he sounded amused.“Who sells her soul to a sea witch to become a mermaid in order to escape her betrothal to an awful rich man in her village,” I cringed just talking about it. I thought about all of those sleepless nights I spent in my freshman year of college, writing about a romantic fantasy world I wanted to escape into. And then I met my ex and I had to incorporate the prince. “Then as a mermaid she falls in love with a prince, but she has to do the sea witch’s bidding and lure him to his death.”“Classic dilemma.”“They obviously figure it out and then the next three books are about their fight with the sea witch and all the evil in the ocean that comes on land, and– Oh my God, can I please stop talking about this?”He laughed at my distress, and said, “It sounds a right lovely fairytale, love.”“Yeah, well, it still helps to pay the bills.”“How does it end?” he asked.I took a swig of coke again, and shrugged. “Guess you have to read it to find out.”“Is it happily ever after?”I should have killed the prince off, I thought for a moment, remembering how I had finished the series seriously believing I was going to spend the rest of my life with my ex– that happily ever afters happened every day, were real, were going to happen to me.“You don’t sell books by giving away the ending, Turner.”He made a face, before asking, “Will you write another then?”“I want to,” I said. “I just– I never know where to start with fiction. I have all these ideas, but nothing seems worthwhile anymore. And all I want is to write something that will be taken seriously– that will be important and have some kind of substance for people.”“‘Ow do you know Arabella didn’t do that? Just because it was a fairytale doesn’t mean it wasn’t important.”I mulled this over, something that I hadn’t really even considered since I turned a corner and grew embarrassed of my series and my navieté with my ex.“I don’t know where to start,” I said.He shrugged. “Just start.”The water was aquamarine, and the sun bright and hot when we arrived at the beach hours later. We dropped our things and ran into the water immediately– warm as a bath– and swam, splashing like children in the sunshine, scaring each other under the surface, wrestling each other into the waves. We came out dripping, starving, and had a lazy, sun-soaked lunch of fish tacos and margaritas at a restaurant on the water. I felt so lazy and content when we returned to lay on the beach, that I could have fallen asleep in the sun.Within moments, Alex did, sunglasses still on, lying on his stomach with his arms as a pillow under our rented umbrella. I watched him for a minute, breathing contently, so relaxed, and I felt an unwanted pang of adoration for him, for this moment of vulnerability.I didn’t immediately shake it off, but I didn’t sit with it either.Instead, I pulled a spare notebook and pen out of my beach bag, and stared out to the horizon for a minute, letting my thoughts wander.I looked over at Alex again, sleeping like a baby, his greasy, sandy hair in slight disarray, and then I began to write.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Seven
Misbehaving for Days
I wrote all of the next day while Alex did interviews and meetings to prepare for his show. Sitting in the rumpled bedding of our hotel suite, I didn’t explore Mexico City like I had planned. I ordered room service and sometimes brought my laptop out to the balcony. Something in me had released and I couldn’t
stop
writing. It was broken fragments of thought and feeling, scenes littering my notebooks without a connecting thread, but it all pulsed with real life and meaning– substance and importance I hadn’t felt in any of my writing for years. By late afternoon, with the sun setting behind me on the balcony, I was constructing the beginnings of an outline for an actual novel, and I hadn’t felt so satisfied with my work in a long time.
Someone cleared their throat, and I looked up, startled, to see Alex leaning against the doorframe onto the balcony, smiling.“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “You look quite focused.”“I’m writing,” I replied, and I felt flushed and happy.“Work stuff?” he asked. I shook my head with what have must been an elated smile, and he raised an eyebrow. “Really?”“My editor won’t be thrilled,” I shrugged. “But I don’t care right now.”He smiled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m glad. I don’t want to pull you away then, but the boys wanted to go out on the town tonight– fancy being my date?”
After a day of writing and room service holed up in the hotel, I needed a shower. I washed my hair and let it air dry, loose and wavy and golden red around my face. I applied some mascara and a blood-red lip, paired it with a leather mini skirt, plain white t-shirt, and some peep-toe booties. I was feeling nervous about hanging out with the rest of the group– as if I had somehow detached Alex from the Arctic Monkeys and was realizing, once again, that this was a group I had listened to and loved for years– and I took extra care with my appearance because of it.
Alex took me to dinner at the hotel restaurant before we met everyone else for drinks. I was fidgeting, pushing food around my plate, and drinking Alex under the table in an attempt to alleviate my anxiety.“What do they know about me?” I asked as our food was cleared.“Just that you’re my groupie booty call,” he replied without batting an eye.I rolled my eyes and drained my drink.We took a cab to a bar, and Alex snuck his hand around mine in the backseat, giving it a squeeze, calming me. Inside, the three of them were waiting at a table in the back with a round of shots, including one for me.“There she is,” said Matt, whose name I only knew because I was a fan, not because we had been introduced yet. “Pleased to meet the one who’s been keeping Al away from us.”I smiled and blushed.He handed me a shot, and then gave one to Alex. “To the girl who’s saved us from having to see so much of this wanker.”We clinked glasses and threw our shots back, it burned my throat but I didn’t wince.“Another?” Nick asked.“Make it a double,” I said, making them cheer.And it was the first of many drinks. By the third bar I was stumbling and slurring my words, but I couldn’t remember having had so much fun during a night out, or drinking so much without puking. It was easy to talk and laugh with the guys, and they welcomed me like one of their own. We talked about their lives and significant others, and we poked fun at each other like old friends. I danced with Alex in the midst of a horde of gyrating bodies, and only thought of how nice it would be to fall asleep next to him afterward, not about fucking him immediately.Until he pulled me to him, swaying his body, pressed close to mine, and whispered, “I can’t wait to get under that leather skirt.”I shivered and pulled away, smirking at him and twirling away in said leather skirt.It wasn’t until early morning was about to dawn that we spilled back into our hotel room, drunk off our asses, laughing like a couple of idiots as we tripped over each other in the dark.“You,” Alex said, sitting against the bed on the floor where he had fallen, his hand finding my thigh. “Come ‘ere.”Instead of waiting, he crawled over to me, and did just what he said he couldn’t wait for at the bar, his fumbling fingers finding their way up my skirt.“You’re amazing,” he whispered, and kissed me clumsily, our teeth colliding against each other in our drunken haze.The room was spinning, adding a layer of sensation to an already sensual moment, and the dizziness made it difficult to concentrate, but I didn’t dislike it.His fingers pushed aside my flimsy underwear, and he slipped inside me without warning, making me grab a fistful of his shirt as my eyes fluttered.“Tell me what to do,” he urged, breathing harshly, sounding elated.My brain swam in alcohol and feverish desire, and I closed my eyes, unable to speak, writhing against his hand.“Tell me.”I was coming undone without giving him any instructions, but I told him, “Kiss me.”He did, his lips rough and beautiful, his tongue tasting like beer and tequila and fire in my mouth. I hiked my skirt up my waist, and he grabbed my breast with his free hand, the other still working its magic between my legs.His lips found their way to my ear, sending chills down my body as he moved down, sucking on my neck, moving down further, until his mouth replaced his hands, his tongue working against my clit, his face buried between my legs.A cry built up in my throat with the heat of the moment, and I moved my hips against him, writhing up to my orgasm. His tongue worked faster as I moved, the rhythm and spinning of the room pumping my blood into a frenzy of delicious, aching pleasure.He worked a finger inside of me, below his tongue, and I came suddenly, grabbing his hair with a moan that bordered on a scream.Without warning, he grabbed me, a smile curling his lip, and picked me up, putting me on the bed. He hovered over me, a daze of alcohol and sex in his eyes, and my heart was still pounding from my orgasm, my brain pulsing with a drunken come down.“Tell me what you want me to do to you, Kat,” he said again, and he hadn’t even unbuckled his pants yet, his dick tightly bound, pressed against my leg.“Do it again,” I commanded breathlessly.He smiled, and flipped me over onto my stomach, pulling my underwear off agonizingly slow, and he knelt behind me. I could feel his breath against my bare skin, where his fingers and tongue had been only moments before, and there they were again, at a different angle. It was too soon after my orgasm, I cried out as my blood rushed back, bordering on pain. It was too much, too good.He grabbed a handful of my ass, and stood up, and I could hear his belt coming undone, his zipper pushed down.I wasn’t expecting it when he was leaning over me, pressed against my back, whispering directly into my ear, “Tell me to do it.”His penis was against the spot his mouth had just been, just outside of me, and I spun at the sensation, dizzy still, reeling.“Do it.”“Say please.”“Please,” I begged.He was behind me, inside of me, without a condom, hands around my waist, moving so slowly that my whole body felt like it might disconnect from my brain in ecstasy. After the orgasm I just had, I didn’t think it could happen so quickly again– or so well– but his hips moved faster, harder, and my blood swam into a pulse of pleasure that grew quicker, hotter, more intense, as if it was just building on my previous climax.
I gripped the blankets under me with both hands, groaned uncontrollably into the bedding to muffle the sound. He angled himself just so, and I saw stars, his dick hitting the center of heat and intensity, and he did it again, and again, until I was losing control, spinning and dizzy in an entirely different way, and I came again, folding forward with a shudder. He didn’t stop until he pulled out suddenly a moment later, coming onto the bedspread with a crashing “fuuuuck”.
When we peeled apart I was still spinning, and I stayed where I was, lying on my stomach, watching the room somersault before me.He grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and attempted to clean up the bed, before abandoning the effort and collapsing next to me, one hand on my bare back.“You’re too good, Red,” he whispered, and he began trailing kisses down my shoulder blades, onto the small of my back, and back up again, making me shiver and slowing my breathing. He pushed the hair out of my face, combing it back off my shoulders, and he said, “You have no idea.”
The room stopped spinning and I closed my eyes, “Don’t go away,” I said nonsensically, words emerging from the liquor-infused high of my brainwaves.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eight
I Wanna Be Yours
I woke to the sound of Alex rummaging through his suitcase, and I automatically groaned under the weight of my hangover.His hand was on my naked back gently, suddenly, leaning over me, whispering, “Did I wake you?”I shook my head, because I thought I might throw up if I opened my mouth to speak.“I’ve got a meeting and then sound check,” he said, rubbing the skin of my back with the pad of his thumb. “A car will pick you up if you’d like to come to the show tonight.”I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut.“I’ve got to go,” he pulled away and grabbed a pair of sunglasses from his suitcase. “I’ll send up some breakfast and aspirin, yeah?”I nodded again and buried my face in the pillow. He kissed my hair before he left, and my hangover dragged me back to sleep.
When I awoke later, I downed the water and breakfast and aspirin waiting for me from room service, and showered, feeling almost human again. And then, unthinkably, I continued writing. It was like this force had unleashed within me, and the ideas– the inspiration to push forward– wouldn’t stop. By the time the sun was setting, I had worked for hours without pausing, and I sat back, breathless.
The outline was finished; I was ready to start actually writing the novel– the novel I was proud to start writing.I blinked away my disbelief and noticed my phone light up.The car was waiting downstairs.“Shit!” I jumped up and scrambled out of my leggings and t-shirt. Fumbling through my things, I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and an– Arctic Monkeys t-shirt. Perfect. I threw on my sandals and grabbed my bag, before meeting the car downstairs.The venue turned out to be a massive arena, and as I approached the front, I realized that I didn’t have a ticket, or anything to tell me where to go. I stood around in front of the main entrance, could hear the opening act finishing up as the sun disappeared, people streaming into the building around me, and I tried to deliberate on what to do.I was about to punch out a fruitless text to Alex– he would probably be too busy to even look at his phone– when my phone phone rang.“Kat?”“Yes?”“It’s Claire,” Alex’s manager’s assistant said. “Go in through the main entrance, I’ll meet you by the merch table.”I found her waving at me by a rack of t-shirts, and she hustled me past security and lines of waiting ticket holders, down a hallway, and through a labyrinth under the arena, before depositing me amongst speakers and chords, in the wings of the stage, hidden. There was chaos around me as people cleared the stage of the opener’s instruments, and Claire told me I would have the best view from there once they started.She left me there, and I waited, feeling suddenly nervous, wondering where Alex was, when the stage fell still and empty, and the lights went down.I had a partial view of the crowd in the arena, but I didn’t need it when they erupted into a roar at the darkness, and I could see the shadowy figures walk into view, making the shouts escalate. Even though it was dark, I recognized Alex’s backlit shadow as he stopped at the microphone in front.They waited, building anticipation, and my heart picked up speed as I held my breath. I had never been to a concert like this before. I didn’t know what to expect.The guitars began to whine, and the drums beat a familiar staccato as the lights began flashing, and then Alex started singing and my heart leapt into my throat. God, he was good.
I held my breath for the entire show. Every song, every piece of witty banter he threw at the audience, every silly dance move or smile at the crowd. I felt as if I could melt into the floor, could float away at any moment. He was so
good
, and I felt
proud
of him, like I had an investment in him, watching him like I had never seen him or known him before. At several points I thought I might cry, or dance, or scream, but I just stared, standing with my eyes pinned on him, breathless.
And then he spoke to the audience, and my heart stopped all together.“All right, this is a new song– We can’t take credit for the words, that’s John Cooper Clarke– But it was easy to make some of our own music for it,” he said, sounding nervous under his performance exterior. “I Wanna Be Yours.”It was slow and sensual, and when he sang, the words were so simple, but so pointed, and I felt winded. As he played, he turned and met my eyes from across the stage for one moment, and I was immediately turned on, but so unbelievably scared that I felt sick.This is not for me, I told myself. This is not for me.When it slowed to an end, they crashed into “Brick by Brick” almost immediately, sending the crowd jumping, and I let out an agonized breath, panic searing behind my eyes.I was terrified. Terrified of Alex’s feelings, more terrified of my own, terrified of getting hurt again. I pushed it down, and when the lights went out, and the boys left the stage, and Alex grabbed me and kissed me, sweating and hot, I kissed him back, pretending the anxiety was just butterflies, and I was just turned on.He went back out and continued to rock the encore, and I pretended we were both just in it for the sex.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Nine
My Sweet Rigmarole
We returned to New York the next day, while the rest of the band went home for some time off, and I wondered what would come next. Alex saw me into my apartment, and then disappeared, saying he had to take care of some things, leaving his suitcase behind.That suitcase haunted me as I opened up my laptop, and I worried that this was him moving himself in. Which, I reminded myself, was ridiculous. Alex did not want to live in my shitty, shoebox apartment.I tried to focus on writing– work, not fiction this time, because I had too much to do– and I was able to plug away for several hours without distraction. The sun was going down and it was just beginning to snow thick flakes, when my eyes landed on the suitcase again, no word from him in hours, and I shut my laptop in a split second of tangled frustration.I lit candles and took a relaxing bath in my big, old, clawfoot tub again, my body adjusting once more to the cold New York winter with hours of goosebumps and shivering. The water was hot and frothy with bubbles, and I sank into it, listening to the faint sounds of traffic muffled in snow outside, candlelight flickering against the white tiles of the bathroom walls.I was so relaxed that I didn’t even respond when I heard the knock on my front door, knowing it was him– or move when I heard it open, realizing I had forgotten to lock it behind him all day. I only lazily opened my eyes when he was leaning in the doorframe of the bathroom, smiling, snowflakes in his hair.“You look lovely,” he said softly.I was relieved that he was back, though I didn’t know what it would mean. I suddenly wasn’t thinking about it, I was calm.He didn’t speak as he took off his jacket, peeling away layers of clothes slowly and deliberately, his eyes locked on mine the whole time. He was fully naked in moments, and slipping into the warm water, his winter-cold limbs sliding against mine. Without a word, I maneuvered myself and turned, leaning against his chest, between his legs, water and bubbles rising up around us.“Have you been writin’?” he asked quietly, his mouth right behind my ear.I didn’t want to talk. Talking was feeling a little too intimate for me, so I didn’t. Instead, I took both of his hands out of the water and put them on my soapy breasts, sliding my body against him slightly.He inhaled sharply, nuzzling his nose into the hair behind my ear, squeezing his hands where I’d left them.I slid against him underwater, feeling his dick go harder beneath me, his hands running down my wet body, under the surface to my waist. I ground against him, creating currents in the tub, feeling him breathe harder against my neck, a gasp hitching in his breath as I moved faster.“What are you doin’, love?” he whispered, but he didn’t stop what he was doing.He kissed wet spots onto my neck and shoulders in a hurry, reaching around to cup a hand between my legs. The water lifted me to slide up and down against him, and he played me like a piano, pushing me away from thoughts of his suitcase, away from writing, into his hands and senselessness, where it was so easy to go back.“Oh, God, Kat.”Having him say my name– not his nickname for me– shook me, and I turned abruptly, straddling him, sending water splashing onto the bathroom floor, sliding him into me with my weight.I wanted to fuck any ideas of romance out of him.He sat up in the water, holding me to him, his mouth going to one breast, and then the other, burying his face between them as I slid up and down his dick. When he looked up to meet my eyes, I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and pulled his head back, riding him, riding out my frustration and fear, feeling my orgasm rise with lightning heat as his breathing picked up speed and I moaned.He fought my hands to sit up, grabbed my wrists and pinned them to my sides, maneuvered himself so that he was on top, half of the water splashing out of the tub, our bodies only semi-submerged in soapy water now.He was fighting me playfully, sexually, but my fight was frustration mated to pleasure, and he didn’t know it, but he was fucking me calm.I bucked against him, not wanting him to be in control of this. I had a plan here, and he was ruining it.“Fuck,” he groaned, releasing my wrists as he gripped the sides of the tub, eyes going hazy.I did it again, watched him shudder, and then he opened his eyes and pulled out, watching my reaction– the growl that escaped my throat. His hand slipped under the water again. There was no way he was going back to foreplay now. I nearly screamed and reached for his hand to stop him, but he stopped me instead.He pinned my wrist to my side, and I squirmed against him as his hand returned underwater, rubbing my clit gently– too gently. I hooked a leg around him, but it made no difference, he worked intently, slowly, watching my eyes close as I dissolved beneath him, whimpering with want, giving up the fight as my orgasm flooded into fruition. He fingers worked more deftly under the water’s surface, and he responded to my body intuitively– the pulsing, the moans, the breath– until I came with a crash of light and sound and sensation, his fingers continuing until I had to push him away because it was too much and I was gasping.He sat back against the tub, the water so low now it was only a couple of inches in the tub. I was still breathing hard when I sat up and he pulled me in to kiss him, slow and calm, like he wasn’t erect, like he didn’t have anywhere in the world to be.I pushed away from him and lowered myself down to run my tongue along the length of his penis, above the water, and he stroked my hair affectionately. It was too sweet for me, so I took all of him in my mouth, making him curse. I worked him with my tongue, lips, my hands, in unison, until he was moaning my name, begging for more, and I obliged, until he shook apart underneath me, no need for words at all.We were both wrapped in towels later on, he sitting on my bed, wet hair slicked back, while I rifled through my stuff, looking for something to wear to bed, holding a towel around me.“I’ve started some work for our next album,” he said suddenly, the first words out of his mouth since we left the bathtub.I turned, a t-shirt in my hand, and looked at him. “Really?” He had only been gone for several hours.“Just pieces of things this past week,” he explained. “‘Aven’t had much time to sit down and put anything together properly. Except the song you heard at the concert.”“That’s great,” I said, opening another drawer and pulling out some sweatpants.I figured his next statement would be about his plans to go back home– to London, or L.A. or wherever– and continue his life and start proper work on his next album. I was half bracing myself for it, half relieved. Which is why what he actually said next made me momentarily drop my clothes.“Yeah, so I’m staying in New York.”I scrambled to pick my things up, shaking my head, heart pounding. “To work? Why?”He paused momentarily, looking– hurt? Confused? Angry?“Well, I started writing summat new here for the first time since the tour started,” he said. “And I already have a studio in the works for when we’re ready to record– and I found a place here in Brooklyn today– on the water.”“That’s great!” I said, because he looked so expectant– so excited to share it with me. And, I wasn’t going to pretend part of me wasn’t thrilled he’d be here– close by– for the time being, but a bigger part was reminding me to not get too close, that I would end up hurt and I didn’t know if I could stay away from him enough to prevent that. But then again, I reminded myself, he was remaining here for an accessible fuck buddy too. That’s all we were, right?“D’you want to see it?” he asked.“Now?”He shook his head and smiled once more, pulling me to him. “Or tomorrow. Whatever you want.”“Tomorrow,” I nodded. “I’m gonna have an early night– have to be up for a meeting with my editor in the morning.”He started getting dressed, as if he was going to leave, and I wondered if he was ready to move into his apartment yet– if he even had a bed to go to.“You don’t have to go,” I told him suddenly, making him turn. “If you want to sleep here before you officially move in.”His lopsided smile made it all worth it, and he climbed into bed in just his briefs and t-shirt, pulling me down into his arms.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ten
Lit the Very Fuse
When I left for my meeting the next morning, Alex was still asleep in my bed, curled around a pillow like he didn’t have a care in the world. It left me conflicted as I took the subway to Midtown, earbuds shoved into my ears, music loud enough to drown out my own thoughts. I grabbed coffee for my editor and me at the Starbucks by the office, and I could have been imagining it, but I thought a girl by the milk snapped a picture of me with her phone as I was leaving.Sitting down to talk with my editor, Barbara, was a nice distraction for about an hour. She pulled apart the last pages I had sent her, loading me up with tons of suggestions and ideas, demanding more of the next pieces, none of which I had been able to do too much of since meeting Alex. I thought about mentioning my idea for a new novel to her, but I refrained– I didn’t want to share that just yet.When I got back to Brooklyn I went to Greenpoint and set up in the corner of a quiet, bookshelf-lined cafe I loved. I didn’t know if Alex would still be in my apartment, and I just wanted some time to myself to work. So, I got a large coffee and a sandwich, and worked on my essays while I ate. It was afternoon by the time I moved onto the novel, opening up a blank document and all of the prewriting notes I had made, changing my music, and starting.I fell into the most blissful writing blackhole I had ever experienced. There was nothing but the words pouring out of me through the keyboard, spinning a world of elements and electricity that charged me alive. Alex lived somewhere in the back of my mind, but it didn’t distract me, it lulled me, and by the time the sun was setting, I felt rejuvenated– like myself again. Satisfied and fired up, capable of taking on the world.Until the teenage girl with the septum ring approached my table, ripping me from my reverie.I pulled my earbuds out, and looked at her embarrassedly, thinking she worked there– thinking she was asking if I wanted another coffee or telling me to stop taking up a table. “Sorry?” I said, because I hadn’t heard her words through my headphones.“Are you dating Alex Turner?”She may as well have punched me in the stomach. I was that unsuspecting– that shocked.“Excuse me?” I finally got out.She pulled her phone out of her pocket, fiddled with it for a minute, before she turned it to me. I leaned forward, noting the indie music gossip site she had pulled up and– there was a picture of Alex and me at JFK on our way back from Mexico, both of us looking tired and sun-drunk, laughing, his arm slung casually around my waist as we rolled our suitcases toward a line of taxis.
I swallowed hard.
I didn’t know how to react to this– what to make of this.So I lied.“That’s not me, sorry.”She looked from me, to the phone, back to me, and though she did not look convinced in the slightest, she didn’t fight me.As soon as she had spun around and returned to her group of friends– all whispering and peering over at me– I packed up my things and left, feeling winded.I hurried down the street, walking blindly toward the subway stop, and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I hadn’t looked at it since entering the cafe, so I wasn’t surprised to see I had a message from Alex.
Come over =)
Where?
He sent me the address, and I stopped on the sidewalk, deliberating.I felt the draw to go see him like a magnetic current. Even if it was just standing in the same space as him, I was desperate to be close to him at the moment. The girl in the cafe had left me unsettled and restarted the tug of war in my head, and I just wanted him to quiet the thrum of my own thoughts– however that might be. But the fact that I couldn’t stay away– that my first reaction was to go to him when I was so freaked out about the idea of dating him, wanting it a little too much for my own comfort– scared me as well. Wasn’t that what had made it so unbearable when things crumbled with my ex?What is happening here? I asked myself.It was getting cold on the sidewalk, so I didn’t think, I just acted, sticking my hand out and hailing a passing cab.The ride to Dumbo only took about ten minutes, and I wasn’t surprised to see that his building was much nicer and bigger than my own. At the front entrance, I pressed the number for the apartment he had texted to me, and a buzzer immediately sounded, unlocking the door.I took the elevator to the top floor, and when I stepped out, I saw him leaning out of his door, eagerly waiting with a smile.When I reached him he ushered me inside, closing the door behind us, and I looked around, surprised. I had expected it to be bigger, more flashy, but it was just nice. There were exposed, worn wooden beams, open, white walls, and wood floors. It was furnished already, with a mix of worn, bohemian and retro pieces, vintage photographs and artwork adorning a gallery wall.Though it fit him well, I looked at him questioningly. He had only moved in today.“It’s a sublet,” he answered. “A friend of a friend left for London for the year and needed someone as soon as possible. It just worked out perfectly.”I walked around, jealous of the vast windows in the living room, the view that opened onto the Brooklyn Bridge. As I took it all in, I noticed the guitar propped against the couch, the drink glass, cigarette packaging, and notebook paper littering the coffee table.“Working?” I asked, pointing at it.He ran a hand through his hair, smiling, “A bit.”I wound my way back into the kitchen, taking it all in. His place. Here. In Brooklyn. For at least a year if he wanted it.“You ‘ungry?”It dawned on me just how hungry I was.“Starving.”
We ordered pizza and drank red wine on the couch, the lights dim, the TV on. He asked about my day, interested in hearing about my meeting, about my work. I told him about my essays, about my day writing, but I didn’t tell him about the start of the novel just yet. He told me about the apartment, about talking to Matt about coming to New York, about starting to work on another album. We watched travel shows, laughing about how cheesy they were, comparing the places we’d been– where we wanted to go.
“I went to Rome,” I said, when the conversation turned to Italy. “I think I’d like to go back and do Tuscany, or Venice instead.”“When did you go to Rome?”
I had been so relaxed, lying on the couch with my feet in his lap, his hands resting on me so comfortably. The wine had soaked into me, weighing me down with contentment. I forgot that Rome wasn’t something I wanted to talk about, that we
weren’t
dating.
“Right after college.”“You’re red, Red,” Alex teased, leaning towards me. “Was it with a boyfriend?”I didn’t say anything, just took a long drink of wine.“It was!” he laughed, like he had struck gold. “Red Cat’s university beau.”I turned back to the travel show.“Well go on then,” he said, sipping wine. “Tell me about him.”“No.”“I won’t make fun. I promise.”“There’s nothing to say.”“There’s always something–”“He was an asshole, okay?” I snapped, my voice far more shrill than I wanted it to be. “I don’t want to talk about it.”He leaned back in understanding, nodded. I felt shame and frustration simmer under my skin, and I kept my gaze turned on the TV, arms folded over my chest. When he put his glass of wine on the coffee table and stood up, I thought he was going to make a grand apology, or ask me to leave. Instead, he went over to the record player under the TV and put one on.It was an old, crackly record, and a jaunty, wordless, swing song began to filter through the speakers, drowning out the travel show. He turned to me, his hips swaying dramatically to the music, giving me a pouty look, and putting his hand out.I tried so hard not to smile, not to laugh, but the music was too cheerful, his movements too adorably ridiculous. He sashayed his way over to me and took my hands, pulled me to my feet. I smiled like an idiot as he started to swing dance me around the living room, and I laughed like a fool when he dipped me, twirled me, went out of his way to be goofy for me. And when the song ended, replaced with a slow, liquid melody, I wrapped my arms around his neck, met him eagerly when he leaned in and kissed me.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eleven
Shake, Rattle, and Roll
We fell into a routine that was too comfortable to fight. We worked during the day, sometimes side by side in one of our apartments, and slept together at night. Most of those nights included sex– fun, hot, intense, silly, amazing sex. We tried restaurants, browsed record shops and bookstores, met each other’s friends, went out to dance and drink and laugh the night away. But we weren’t dating. For all I knew, we weren’t even exclusive. And that was fine.I was at my apartment late one night in the beginning of February, caught in a writing loop that I didn’t want to get out of, when I heard a knock at my door. Checking my phone, I saw I had several missed texts and calls from Alex, and it was nearing midnight, so I got up to let him in. When I opened the door, I didn’t expect what I saw.He looked like he was fighting tears, or straining against the anger simmering under his skin. He had been drinking, and his eyes were soggy, but they were also practically black as he walked past me, into the apartment, shaking.“Alex?”He was pacing, and I worried over what could have brought this on.“Alex, what’s going on?”He strode over to me and kissed me, out of nowhere, angrily, knocking the wind out of me. He was immediately insistent, grabbing me to him, pulling at my clothes.
I broke away from him, pushing against his chest, asking, “
What
is going on?”
“I don’t want to talk,” he said.He immediately dove in to kiss me again, but I stopped him. “You’re not okay. What happened?”He pulled away from me abruptly and went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of vodka from the top of my refrigerator, taking a swig. Wiping his mouth with his hand, he waited a beat, and then turned back to me, and I couldn’t believe it, but it looked like there were tears in his eyes.
“My ex.”
He didn’t say anything else. In my mind, he was going to tell me he had seen her, they were getting back together, he had slept with her and was ending whatever we had. I spun my own hurt a million times before reeling it back in quickly. The moment wasn’t about me, and I shouldn’t be surprised by that kind of news besides.“It’s been awhile now,” he said. “We’re friends.”I held my breath.
“I
thought
we were friends.”
He brought the bottle into the living room, took a long pull from it before he sat down on the couch. I sat down next to him, put a hand on his leg, trying to be comforting, though my heart was pounding nervously.“I read summat today,” he began. “She was at a fashion show and one of our songs came on. She fuckin’ asked the DJ to turn it off. To put the Stones on instead.”Another long glug from the bottle.“I don’t want to be with her,” he said. “We needed to end it– it was over for a while– but I thought we were friends.”His words were slurring together, and I could tell this was so much worse because he was drinking, but I didn’t stop him when he took another drink, I just waited for him to keep talking. The pain of his break up was compounding with the hurt of feeling like he’d lost his best friend too.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “She fought so hard for us to stay friends– for us to talk regularly– to check in on me.” He sounded choked up and I rubbed his back, aching for him. “She was goin’ round telling all the papers we were best friends still. I thought we
were
.”
I had never seen him like this. In all of our encounters he had always been the one cool, calm, and collected, goofy, charming, and in control. To see him unravel, even slightly, hurt me, made me want to take on the world for him and kiss him better.“So, what the fuck?” he spit out the words towards my door, as if she was right outside, taking another chug from the bottle.“Maybe it’s not true,” I said. “Maybe someone just twisted something for the story.”He shook his head. “A friend confirmed it– wanted to warn me before I read it.”“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It was probably just a bad night– a bad moment for her. Being your friend and hearing a song that maybe reminded her of a different time are very different things.”He was silent for a minute, swayed slightly where he sat, then looked at me.“Break ups can really fuck with a person,” I said, trying not to think too much about my own issues as I spoke.He stared at me, the alcohol practically seeping out of his pores, and he said, “You really are too good, Red.”I rolled my eyes and smiled. “And you’re really too drunk.”He folded himself into my arms like a child, lying in my lap, and I ran my fingers through his hair until he relaxed, until he fell asleep.When I woke up the next morning, it was because of the mouth sucking on my neck, just below my earlobe. I stirred slightly, opened my eyes, and Alex kissed me fully, haloed in bright morning light.“Good morning,” I said, but he was busy, pushing my tank top up, lips wrapping around the nipples of my breast. My words fell into a soft, appreciative moan.I thought he would wake up hungover, but I wasn’t about to complain about this turn of events.He nuzzled the skin around my nipples, his hot breath making my nerves turn to liquid. He descended on each breast, one at a time, taking his time, so slow and measured that I fully awoke just from the pitching desire. I was wet before he even touched me, but when he did, it was slow again, light, barely there, and I shuddered.“Alex,” I whined.He pulled my underwear off, trailed his mouth down my stomach, hovered between my legs and looked up to smile.“You bastard,” I groaned, unable to endure his love of teasing.He sucked on the inside of my thighs softly, up to my knees and back down, trailing his fingers where his lips went. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel anything but the intense heat rising between my legs, begging him to touch me.He pushed my legs open gruffly, hooked them over his shoulders, pulling me slightly down the bed, and then licked the pulse between my legs directly, making me sigh his name in gratitude. His tongue built the perfect pressure, his breath hot against me, pinning me into the bed with how fucking good it felt. He grabbed the skin of my thighs as he worked, groaning himself. I tried to reach for him, to make him feel as good as he was making me feel, but he held my wrists to the bed, worked his tongue more furiously.I was close when I lifted my hips once more, could feel the orgasm rising to meet me. Then he slipped his fingers inside of me as well, reaching, fucking me, and I tightened around him, crying out, spasming against the mattress. He kept me down, kept going, as molten fire exploded where we connected, rocketed around my body, making me collapse into the pillows with a moan, heart beating out of my chest in a reckless staccato.His lips kissed their way back up my body, stopping at each breast, before he lay down next to me, certainly proud of himself.“Good morning,” he said, smarmy as all hell.“Good morning,” I echoed, still out of breath.“Breakfast?” he asked, even though he was erect enough for much more.He moved to get up, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him back to bed, hands and lips moving desperately of their own accord.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Twelve
Do Me No Good
I didn’t have a choice, I had to pull the rip chord.My hand was forced the night we went to dinner at The Ivy. It was Valentine’s Day, but we hadn’t even talked about that, so I assumed it was just dinner as usual. I was in a black dress and cheetah print peacoat, he in a striped suit jacket, making eyes turn.We had finished dinner, were working on a second bottle of wine and considering dessert in such a relaxed and comfortable way, when I saw his eyes land near the door, his whole body go rigid.I turned on reflex, my eyes landing on her, stunned. I had seen her before, of course, but never in person. She looked like a delicate, beautiful pixie, impossibly thin and exquisite. Her eyes were bluer than I imagined, set off by the navy, lacy frock dress she was wearing under an expensive, fitted trench coat. Her thin legs, balanced on impossibly high pumps, were clad in sheer, black tights, and her hair was artfully tousled, bangs sweeping her beautifully made-up face. Her darkly lined cat eyes landed on us as she and her date spoke to the host, and my skin prickled in anticipation.She made a beeline for our table immediately, and I heard Alex swear under his breath.I turned to him and took his hand, thinking about his breakdown over the fashion show incident, but he looked like he was already sweating.“Hello, Alex,” she said with a smile when she stopped before us, her voice low and hypnotic in an undetectable way. “It’s nice to see you.”She looked slightly uncomfortable– in the way that only exes can be when encountering one another after things have ended– but she gave me a genuinely kind smile when her eyes met mine.“Alexa,” Alex said politely, trying to come off far more comfortable than he seemed. “What a surprise.”“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, her date– a man I didn’t recognize– waiting behind her quietly. “I just spotted you from the door and thought I’d come by.”“This is Kat,” he said, gesturing to me with the hand I had been holding only moments before. “My girlfriend.”I watched Alexa’s face flash with surprise, jealousy, hurt, for a split second, before she smiled. I had turned to look at Alex though, shocked, annoyed.“How wonderful,” she said, meeting my eyes once more. “Well, I don’t want to spoil your dinner. We’re meeting some friends. It was nice to see you. Nice to meet you, Kat.” And they were gone.
Alex let out a rush of breath when they had left, but I had turned on him, the wine burning behind my eyes, his words–
my girlfriend
– making my skin hot with a branding iron I wanted nothing to do it, didn’t believe.
“What the hell was that?” I hissed.He was brought up short, and he took a long drink of wine. “What?”
“Your
girlfriend
?”
There were equal parts confusion and hurt on his face, a shadow of anxiety and embarrassment clouding his eyes.“Why would you say that?” I demanded, and I was thinking of the hurt on Alexa’s face at meeting me, hearing those words from him, of the hurt that had left me crippled when my own ex had broken my heart. I knew I was growing slightly hysterical, beginning to cause a scene, but a pressure was building inside of me that I couldn’t push down anymore.“Why not?” he asked jauntily, cocksure. “You’re not my girlfriend?”It was too much, he was too flippant. I grabbed my jacket and my purse, and hurried out of the restaurant. I didn’t think of the bill we hadn’t paid, or the people staring at us– possibly Alexa and her date– I just stormed onto the sidewalk, pulling my coat on angrily as I went.He was behind me immediately, calling my name, grabbing my arm to stop me at the corner of the nearby cross streets.“Kat–”
“I don’t want to be your girlfriend,” I said, and it hurt something in my chest to say it, but I couldn’t stop myself. Better to endure this hurt, his nonchalance now, than my own break down at our eventual break up once we were both invested. “I told you I had a life here and I didn’t want anything to change. You don’t
want
me to be your girlfriend.”
The anguish behind his eyes was visceral, and I looked at the traffic moving on 8th Avenue instead of facing him.“What are you talking about?” he said, his voice remaining controlled enough, though it looked like he was vibrating under his suit jacket in agitation. “What about the last couple of weeks?”“Do you want me to be your girlfriend?” I challenged him. “Have you thought about that, or did you just say it because it was her?”He stopped, looking properly caught, properly shamefaced at my words.“I told you,” I repeated, my throat going painfully tight. “This was just about sex. We’re friends, but this is mostly physical, and you knew that– tell me you don’t feel the same way.”I thought he had felt the same way, mostly, but he looked like I’d punched him square in the chest, and he turned away from me on the sidewalk, cold puffs of steam billowing from his mouth as he scoffed. He took two paces away, looking like a caged animal, before turning and walking back up to me.Maybe I’d been wrong.“Alex.”He put a hand up, silenced me, a vein pulsing angrily in his neck, his jaw clenched. “I get it.”Without warning, he pushed past me, back into the restaurant, and I stayed on the sidewalk for several minutes in the freezing, February chill, waiting to see if he would come back.He didn’t.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Thirteen
Snap Out of It
I had expected that after that night, we would both move on. It had been fun, I had liked him, but it didn’t work out, and now I would return to my real life, and he would be free to pursue whomever he wanted, live the rockstar life. But when I didn’t hear from him at all for the entire week following Valentine’s Day– even when I texted him just to ask him how he was– I found myself immediately struggling. Again, I couldn’t focus on my writing or much of anything, I was drinking probably as much as he was, convinced I was just stressed and anxious– that it had nothing to do with him– and I was trying to go out with my friends and party, to be in loud rooms with lots of bodies and just stop thinking, to move on.It was a rainy Tuesday night and I had actually spent it at home, sober, truly trying to end the adjustment period and get back to work on my essays and the new novel, when the knock sounded at my door.When I heard it I knew I had been waiting for it for days, expecting it without knowing it, and I didn’t even question myself when I opened it immediately.I knew also, right away, that I had never seen him so drunk.He practically fell into my living room, steadied himself on the back of an armchair.“Alex, what are you doing here?” I asked, surprised after the radio silence of the last seven or so days.He pulled himself to his full height, straightened out the lapels of his jacket and smoothed the sides of his hair. He looked at me, his eyes unfocused, glassy, and he said, “You’re wrong.”I shook my head, said, “What are you–”“Whatever this is,” he cut across me, unable to stand straight, his voice and posture cocky, demanding, “Whatever you’ve got going on– You’ve got to snap out of it.”My hackles rose in annoyance, and I folded my arms as he pointed a finger at me. I had convinced myself it had been a mutual misunderstanding we’d had that night, but he was pointing the finger directly at me.“Maybe you’re scared,” he continued, staggering closer to me, shoving a finger into my shoulder. “Maybe you’re hurt. But you’re making a mistake.”“I think you should go,” I said, taking his arm and pushing him towards the door.He pulled away from me, swaying. “Tell me you haven’t acted like my girlfriend the last couple of weeks, love.”“Alex, you’re drunk.”
He took both my shoulders, gently shook me, unable to stand perfectly straight. “Come on, Kat! It’s
me
!”
I just stared at him, our eyes locked, his so unfocused I could barely see
him
behind them. Neither of us said anything, listening to the sounds of each other breathing, a cloud of beer and vodka surrounding him. Thoughts pinwheeled behind both of our eyes, but the pull of attraction was still there, building as we stared at each other silently, his hands still gripping my shoulders. It stunned me how quickly it flooded me once more, how much I had been longing for him without letting myself consider it. My heart picked up slightly as I looked at his wet lips, as thoughts circled in my mind.
It wouldn’t be fair to give into this, I knew. He was drunk and we weren’t on the same page, apparently. I had no intention of changing my mind or leading him on, or of being his girlfriend. But I didn’t know if I was strong enough to hold back either.When he crushed me to him, his lips on mine, searching, I didn’t stop him. I explored the taste of alcohol along his tongue, let him stumble backward with me, pressing me up against the wall separating my living room and bedroom.He was against me, and I was already wet, throbbing, his hands unbuttoning my jeans, clumsy with drunkenness.“Alex,” I emerged to say. “We can’t do this if we’re not clear. This is just sex, right?”He didn’t say anything, just searched my face for a minute.“Right?”He looked at me for a moment more, but he was too far gone to fight, to think straight, so he nodded, covered my lips with his own, tongue insistent. I don’t know what I would have done if he had said no.
I let the guilt slip from my mind entirely as he ground himself against me, my back pressing into the wall. His mouth was everywhere, hungry, searching, as if he could lick every part of me, swallow me whole. He was sucking on my collar bone, hands roaming down my breasts, my stomach, and his dick grew harder and harder when he pressed it between my legs.
I held the back of his neck, nails digging into his skin as a fever built beneath my jeans, impatience circling my bloodstream. The grinding of his jeans against mine was enough pressure against my clit for me to let out a huff of pleasure, wrapping a leg around him.His mouth curled in a half smile, and he undid my jeans, pushed them down roughly with my underwear. I expected him to come back up, to undo his own and fuck me quickly. Instead, he knelt in front of me, shoved his mouth between my legs and sent me doubling over against the wall, shock spiraling against the pressure of blood building in my veins. He licked upward, firmly, lips working in tandem with his tongue, and I could feel him smile at the audible reaction he elicited from me. My hands gripped his shoulders as he moved, steadying my body from falling over, going weak from his expert touch.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered, so close to orgasm my vision went hazy and I shook.
He applied more pressure with his tongue, moved faster against me, built a rhythm that forced a spark of fire to explode in my bloodstream. Heat spread up my stomach, across my body, and I let out an unbidden shout, his name, as I came with several spasms, unable to stay upright.He stood then, pinned me against the wall with his weight, undid his belt and jeans against my shaking body. He didn’t take them off fully, just pulled his dick out, spread my legs with his knee. When he entered me I saw stars, head falling against the wall, listening to the sounds he made with building satisfaction.“Oh, God,” I whimpered.“Do you like this?” he breathed into my ear, thrusting into me, making a pulse throb inside of me. “Do you like when I fuck you?”“Yes,” I choked out. “Oh, God, yes.”He thrust harder, once, twice, and then pulled out, spun me around and pressed me against the wall. His mouth was against my ear again, and he was drunkenly slurring, “Do you want me inside of you?”
“Alex,” I growled.
“How bad do you want it?”I could feel his dick against my ass, could feel his heart pounding with desire, so I ground backward against him, forcing his hand.“Tell me how bad you want it, Kat,” he insisted gruffly, holding back.
“How bad do
you
want it?” I returned hotly, grinding against him, harder, making him groan deep in his throat. “How bad do you want to be inside me?”
“Bad,” he pinned me to the wall tightly, hands on my waist, gripping me almost painfully.“Prove it.”He thrust inside of me from behind, and I bit my lip to keep from shouting.“Like that?” he asked, thrusting again.“Yes,” I moaned, cheek pressed against the cool wall, trails of heat and light seering my body from the inside out, building unbearably for my second orgasm.“What does it feel like?” he asked.“Oh, God,” I cried as he picked up speed, his hips moving furiously. “You feel so good.”“Do you want to come again?”“Yes!”“Say my name.”“Alex.”“Say it again.”
“Alex,
please
.”
He thrust harder still, deeper, hitting the crest of my agonizing heat, over and over, sending me crashing into my second orgasm, the nerve endings of my entire body on fire, sizzling with pleasure and satisfaction as I pressed myself into the wall, weak.He didn’t stop, making me momentarily blind, until he pulled out quickly, coming himself, dripping down my leg.“Fuck,” he said, when it was all over, when were both entangled against the wall, and though we had both just had an explosive orgasm each, he sounded somehow sad.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Fourteen
Do I Wanna Know?
The guilt crash landed the next morning, when I woke up and he wasn’t there. I shouldn’t have let it happen, I shouldn’t have given in so easily. If we weren’t on the same page with what our relationship was, then we should keep our distance, prevent anyone from getting hurt. I expected a fight, expected another knock at my door, but neither came. I texted to see if he was okay once, twice, but never got a response. Days stacked up and I never heard from him and, while I told myself it was for the best, that he was finished now too, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.With each day that passed, I grew a little more desperate. I sat down to write each morning, and thoughts of him distracted me from my task. I couldn’t eat without feeling nervous. I replayed all our past encounters in my mind, got aroused just standing in the line at Starbucks, thinking of him touching me. And each day it got worse, until I was becoming obsessive, horny, desperate to just get back to normalcy– to my writing, to being a productive, fully functioning human being.When nothing worked, I drank.It was March– nearly two weeks had passed since he had showed up at my apartment– when Bri forced me out for the night, attempting to pull me out of the funk. I had given her all the details regarding Alex as they had played out, and she agreed that it was best that I steer clear of him at this point. To her, it sounded like he wanted a relationship, and if I wasn’t going to give him that than I shouldn’t lead him on.“He doesn’t want a relationship, Bri,” I shouted over my third rum and coke at the bar near her apartment– the same one where Alex and I had first run into each other. “I don’t think that’s what it was about.”She huffed at me, “Why would he call you his girlfriend to his ex?”“To get her jealous.”
She rolled her eyes, sipping her gin and tonic. “Why don’t you just date him? You
like
him!”
“I don’t want a boyfriend.
He
doesn’t want a girlfriend– he’s
Alex Turner
.”
She saw the look in my eyes– she could read me like a book– and she was suddenly so sad for me. “Kat, come on, it was almost a year ago.”She was talking about my ex. I drained my drink.“You’ve got to let yourself move on.”I shook my head, ignoring her.She sighed. “Well, then why don’t you find another fuck buddy if you’re too horny to write?”Now I rolled my eyes at her.“That’s enough,” she slammed her hand on the table. “I’m getting us some shots, we’re getting on that dance floor, and you’re going to find yourself a new sex friend.”She disappeared for the bar, and I stared at the spot where Alex had bumped into me that first night, at the corner of the bar. I remembered the room spinning and thinking it was a dream. I remembered his knee between my legs, how wet I was just straddling him in the backseat of a taxi, how slowly he fucked me in my own bed.I let out a huff of breath, feeling entirely too turned on to be sitting alone in a bar.When Bri returned with the shots, I drained both of ours immediately.
I drank, and danced, and flirted with strangers all night, thinking about Alex the entire time. My eyes scanned the room every few minutes in vain, thinking I might see him, accepting– drunkenly– that I wanted to. And then, finally, when Bri put me in a cab to go home, my shitfaced conscience gave me a get-out-jail-free-card and I gave the driver a different address.
Someone was leaving when I got there, and I was able to get through the front door without ringing. So when I knocked on his apartment door, he was shocked to see me. I could hear a record playing faintly in the background, smell the beer on him, and I wanted so desperately, so selfishly to fold myself into his arms and go to sleep.“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking surprised, but not displeased.My brain swam deliriously, and I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I just– I wanted to see you.”He stepped aside and let me in, and I walked to the middle of the living room, turning to face him as he shut the door. He was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, looking relaxed, comfortable, a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the coffee table, a beer waiting to the side.“Where have you been?” I asked with a curious smile, alcohol shoving words out of my mouth before I could consider them.“‘Round ‘ere,” he answered. “Been writing a lot since I last saw ya.”“Avoiding me?” I quipped with a smirk, walking lazily and dropping down to the couch. It was so strange to be back with him, talking like nothing had happened, but it also felt so normal.He rubbed the back of his head, walked over and dropped down beside me, saying, “Wasn’t sure where we stood after that dinner. Or after I barged into your flat pissed.”“I wasn’t sure where we stood after we saw your ex.”He looked uncomfortable suddenly, grabbed his half empty beer from the coffee table and finished it.“I don’t want things to be weird between us,” I said, and I could hear my words sounded slurred as I put a hand on his leg. “Can’t we just go back to the way things were?”
Rationally, I thought this might be selfish, especially if he
did
want a relationship, but the rum gave me an excuse to not think or see very clearly. All I knew was that I had missed him, and had wanted him, and he was in front of me now, just like before.
“You sound drunk, love.”“I’m tipsy,” I retorted, lying, shedding my jacket.“I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” he smirked.“You have,” I crawled into his lap. “In more ways than one.”He smiled, his hands warm and steady as he cupped my face and kissed me. I practically sighed into his mouth, it was such a relief to touch him, but his was the one opening against mine, his tongue inside, searching.We kissed lazily for several minutes, hands wrapped around each other, as if we had no place to be, as if it hadn’t been weeks since we’d touched. Then he pulled away, searching my face for a moment, gazing into my eyes.“I haven’t been able to get through a single day without thinking about you,” I told him, the room suddenly spinning. “I was back at the bar where you bumped into me that first night.”“Waitin’ for me?”I nodded, kissed him hungrily again, his arms snaking around all of me to pull me in even closer. When I pulled away after a beat I could barely open my eyes I was so drunk, so hypnotized by our closeness. I spoke again, saying, “I’ve wanted you. Every day. Since you left my apartment.”“I’m right ‘ere,” he whispered, lips curled into a smile as he pressed them to mine once more.I crossed my arms to drag my lacy top off, smiling as his eyes and hands roved my body appreciatively. They gripped my neck, pulled me down once more to kiss him. We kissed, our lips locked, back and forth, tongues working furiously, as if we could swallow each other and douse the heat between us. His hands were tangled in my hair, pulling slightly as our mouths grew furious, the zap of lightning crackling up our bloodstreams.“God, I’ve missed you,” he nearly growled, hands clutching at my breasts, gazing at them, feverish.“Let me show you how much I’ve missed you.”It wasn’t something I would normally say– I didn’t think– but the rum and cokes had punched through any filter or reason or sense. Either way, it had the desired effect. He smiled hazily at me as I pulled down the waistband of his sweatpants, gripping his underwear with them, mouth finding the base of his dick as it was released from his pants.My tongue marked a trail from base to tip, making him stiffen even more. At the top, I lowered my mouth down just slightly, tongue lapping against him as I pulled back up, and then further down, and then up. I went faster and deeper each time, making him grab a fistful of my hair as he lifted up to meet me, a deep groan rising in his throat.I was ready to make him come. If that was all I came over for, I would be happy about it, despite how ridiculously turned on I was myself. I began to work to that end though, going faster, harder, feeling him get closer and closer, until he stopped me.“If you don’t slow down I’m going to lose it,” he said breathlessly, holding me at arm’s length for a moment.“I want you to,” I insisted, trying to lower myself down to his lap once more.But he continued holding me back, shaking his head, eyes fluttering back open, saying, “No, you first.”He pulled me onto his lap and then yanked his own shirt off, before easing me back onto the couch, reaching down to unbutton my jeans as he hovered above me.Seconds earlier, I had been willing to sacrifice my own orgasm for his– totally fine with us not having sex at all– but now, as he pulled my jeans and underwear down painfully slow, I felt like I couldn’t wait a second longer for him to be inside of me.Once my jeans were off, he kissed me, showing just how much he was holding back, his mouth hot and breathy against mine as our teeth and lips and tongue collided. And then his fingers were against me, rough and insistent, and I hooked one arm around his neck, face pressed into the crook of his neck, gasping.He groaned slightly from my reaction, worked me harder, until I emitted such a sound of abject need that he slipped one finger inside me, slowly, and then two, harder, and heat swirled around his fingers, shutting my eyes, sending me reeling back against the couch.I was semi-conscious with a rising orgasm, losing myself in the building pleasure of it, until he pulled his fingers out of me, replaced them with his cock. It brought out a near scream of pleasure from me, and then he said my name, thrusting into me, eyes locked on mine, and just the look of him– his gaze so intense and intimate, our bodies so perfectly melded together in fire– sent me spinning into a climax that forced me to gasp his name in uncontrolled appreciation.He didn’t stop, even as I squirmed away from the too-hot burn of pleasure, only stared into my eyes with more purpose, pulled out fully before thrusting back into me harder. He never broke eye contact, gauging my feelings, stripping me down in a way he never had before, giving himself away in a way I never thought he would, and the intimacy of it– the mutual longing and closeness of it– made me crash headlong into another orgasm immediately, crying his name again– as if he was the only other person in the world.It sent him over the edge as well– this feeling between us, my orgasm– and he thrust once, quickly, twice, before he collapsed against me, reaching his own climax with a shout.We stayed glued like that for a moment, our breaths rising and falling together as he stayed on top of me, still inside of me. When he pulled away slightly, it was to look in my eyes, looking like a nervous little boy.“Was that okay?” he asked, so different from the cocky, self-assured Alex I’d known. “That I didn’t– that I didn’t pull out?”I nodded. He knew I was on birth control, we had had some random conversation about it in our time together, but we had always erred on the side of extra cautious. This fact, along with the closeness of the moment before climax, made all of this feel particularly intimate, almost too vulnerable and exposing for me to handle.He kissed me then, long and sweet, before we disentangled slightly, spooning along the length of the couch.“Does this mean I can call you my girlfriend now?”When he asked it, so quietly, with a cocky little smirk, I sat up abruptly and the room spun again– the alcohol rushing back to my brain like a sucker punch.“Alex, I thought–”“What?” he looked surprised, annoyed, sitting up.“You just said that to get Alexa jealous– I thought you were okay with this being–”“Don’t,” he was instantly cold, jaw clenched, shaking his head.“Alex,” he stood as I spoke, yanking his sweatpants on in one movement, walking to the kitchen and grabbing another beer from the refrigerator angrily. “I thought we were understood.”
“Under
stood
?” he barked, placing the beer on the counter without even a sip. “After everything between us– after
that–
” he gestured to the couch where we had just had the most intimate moment of our relationship. “You’re going to tell me…” he was at a loss for words, seething, and he gulped from the bottle suddenly.
I felt scared– had never seen him like this before– and didn’t know what to say. I had actually believed he was okay with us being no more than physical, hadn’t thought he was
truly
invested in a romantic relationship with me. And I was too fucking afraid of one besides.
I pulled my clothes on with shaking hands, feeling too vulnerable to be fighting with him completely naked.“I’m finished,” he said, making me look up and meet his eyes once I had pulled my jeans and shirt back on. “Whatever we started as, I don’t want this to be just sex. I want more. I’m through with that.”“Alex, I can’t,” my voice shook. I wanted so desperately to give in, to say yes, to love him, but there was a wall that I couldn’t get around. I felt like I was beating my fists against it, looking into his eyes, but nothing I did could get me past it.His mouth set in a grim line, and he shook his head, looked away from me and said, “Then you should go.”It shocked me, though it shouldn’t have, and I stayed frozen where I sat for a moment. When I saw he wasn’t faltering, that I couldn’t get past myself and give him what we both wanted, I grabbed my jacket and my shoes, heart pounding as I left his apartment.It wasn’t until I was alone in the elevator, sobriety vying for control of my thoughts, that I broke down, a sob rising up my throat before I could even attempt to stop it, crying uncontrollably all the way to the ground floor.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Fifteen
Sweat on the Walls
The next morning, in the hungover light of day, my sadness and disappointment hardened defensively into anger.Hadn’t he been the one that drunkenly picked me up in a bar, quite obviously just for a one night stand? Hadn’t he come back the night after, immediately diving into sex? Hadn’t he been the one to call me solely to have phone sex? Was I supposed to take all of that and read: Boyfriend?
He had been the one sending mixed signals. He was the one who called me his girlfriend just to get his ex jealous. Came to my apartment drunk, telling me
I
was wrong.
He had no right to be angry, and I didn’t need this kind of drama in my life.So, fine. It was well and truly over. No more headaches. No more meaningless sex. I would live.I got back to my life as best I could. I wrote my personal essays, fueled by my own anger, but for some reason, I couldn’t touch my novel. There was too much heat crackling irritably in my mind. I went out with Bri and other friends, danced with random guys, drank, laughed, had fun.This was the plan when I went out with Bri a couple of weeks later, to a dive bar in Bushwick, with electric pink swear words backlighting the bar. And everything was going according to plan at first. We were several drinks deep (not that we had been the ones to pay for all of them) and dancing amongst the small crowd in the middle of the main room, when I noticed the faintest whisper start up amidst the bodies.It traveled from bar to person, to bouncer to drinker, until I saw him. Alex. Dressed in all black, collar of his leather jacket turned up slightly, sunglasses on. He didn’t see me, he was talking to Matt, and Miles Kane, and I turned away, into the guy dancing nearest to me, and I smiled.I drained my drink and swam in unreality, high as a kite on vodka and seltzer, spinning in my sheer, black top. I’d lost Bri, but I had a new friend, the smiling guy in front of me, offering to buy me another drink.
I followed him to the bar, smiled as he asked for my order and relayed it to the bartender, and then when I looked away, my eyes landed on Alex’s– no more sunglasses, sitting just down the bar– and we both froze. Matt and Miles were still talking around him, hadn’t noticed, but his gaze was locked on me, jaw tightening as I took the drink from the nameless guy and then followed him back to the dancefloor.
The stranger’s hand was on my waist as I worked on my current drink, dancing furiously, like I could shake and spin and gyrate all complicated thoughts away. Looking up, I saw Alex watching me through the crowd, and anger burned underneath my vodka armor.I ground back against the faceless, nameless guy, who had his face buried in my hair, and I swayed drunkenly, thoughtlessly to the music. I kept Alex’s gaze as I did it, letting him know I could care less about his presence, that it made no difference to me, that we were truly over.Nameless guy took me to get yet another drink when I was done, but when I got to the bar Alex was next to me, slightly drunk himself, grabbing my wrist not too gently. “What’you doing?” he growled into my ear, breath hot against my hair.I yanked away from him. “Dancing.”“You look desperate.”“You look jealous.”I could have slapped him I was so angry, but I just stared him down with unfocused eyes.I let nameless guy lead me back out onto the dance floor, and when he kissed me during the chorus of the next song, I let him do that too.I knew it was Alex when a hand gripped my upper arm, pulled me away from the stranger and through the crowd. He didn’t stop until we were in an empty, darkened, back hallway, when he let go, standing before me in the dim light, breathing like an animal.“You’re making a fool of yourself,” he hissed.
“
I’m
making a fool of myself?” I countered. “Look at yourself. You’re like a toddler throwing a tantrum.”
“I’m saving you from embarrassment– throwing yourself at everyone like the slag you are–”I slapped him across the face before I could even consider it– blood boiling over– my hand ringing from the impact.
My hand– the same one that slapped him– flew to my mouth immediately. Shock reeled my anger in slightly, as I realized I’d actually
hit
him, had actually sent his head thrown to the side.
A beat didn’t pass between the sound of the smack and his next move, where he grabbed me to him, lips landing messily, furiously on my own. It shocked me further, made me push him away with both hands, slap him again without thinking about it. Anger enveloped me once more, hot and overwhelming, momentarily blinding me.He stared into my eyes after that, his breath so harsh he was practically panting. He must have seen the pulse alive between my legs, how wet I was from any contact from him, because he grabbed me to him and pushed me up against the wall of the empty hallway.His hands were on my breasts, pawing through my flimsy shirt, and he was grinding against my pelvis. There was a furiousness in his movements, mated to his desire, and I couldn’t deny that I felt it too, my annoyance teasing at my want for him.“I thought you were finished with me?” I taunted in his ear, sliding a hand down to cup his dick.His eyes blazed, and he slid his hands under my skirt behind me, pulling it up. He picked me up and folded my legs around him, saying gruffly, “Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to do nothing but fuck you?”He kissed me again, sucking almost painfully on my lips, but it made my brain swirl in pleasure as he bounced me lightly against his erect, jean-clad dick.I was reminded that we were in a public place, that although this might be a rarely used back hallway, someone could walk down at any moment.“Did you want me to stop?” he asked, nails biting into my thighs.“No,” I breathed, and he lowered me down to stand momentarily, used his free hand to undo his pants at my words.He lowered his face to my breasts, pushed my shirt and bra out of the way to suck on each nipple, making me whimper against my control. My hands clutched at his hair, pulled it, until he came back up to devour my mouth with his own. While his tongue searched mine blindly, his sure fingers rubbed my clit, pushing my underwear aside, firm, quick, making me release a somewhat high-pitched sigh against his lips.And then he was picking me up again, plunging himself inside of me as he pressed me into the wall. He was rough, didn’t take his time, and I dragged my nails down his neck, down his jacket, making him more furious, which only made me see stars, reveling in this angry, heated fuck. He thrust harder, harder, until I was vibrating, tightening around him, crying out, forgetting where we were, and I came with an orgasm like an explosion, molten lava spreading through my veins, loosening my hold around him.But he wasn’t finished, and he thrust, again, harder, grunting curses, the anger and want lining his words like a rough-edged saw. I held onto him, my arms hooked around his neck, legs wide open around him, hanging on for dear life as I rode out the wave of my own orgasm, and then the violent eruption of his own.He waited a moment when it was over, regaining his breath, before he released me, lowered my legs down and pulled out of me. He didn’t look or speak to me as he pulled up his zipper, fixed his belt. Suddenly awkward, drunken spins making me nauseous and anxious, I pushed my skirt back down, pulled it straight.“Alex–”I made to reach for him, but he was already walking back down the hallway, disappearing out a doorway and back into the crowd.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sixteen
Have You No Idea That You’re In Deep?
After our run-in at the bar, I wrote for hours without stopping. I worked on my essays, I dove back into my novel, and I was so relieved. Things were back to normal, I was feeling like myself again, and I went to bed content every night. It seemed like Alex and I had made the right decision, and I didn’t hear from him– was not surprised by this fact given how he had left me at the bar.My writing, however, steadily dissolved into thin air after several days. Things were different. The ease with which words came to me steadily declined. It was a labor to get half a page out, and I sat for hours at my desk, in cafes, bouncing from place to place, changing my music, hoping something would give. But it didn’t. And I began spending hours staring into space, my thoughts turning towards Alex, the angry slouch of his shoulders as he turned his back to me and left me standing in the back hallway of a bar.
As the days stacked up, my thoughts slid towards his body underneath mine, fingers inside me, breath catching as he thrust behind me, and I had to take more cold showers than words I was writing. I couldn’t sleep at night, stayed up for hours remembering his tongue between my legs, measured and deft, making my whole body come alive with his touch. I woke up most mornings, panting, touching myself unconsciously, a sex dream starring Alex dripping from my sleep-addled brain. I tripped up the subway stairs as my knees gave out, weak, at the mere thought of his smirk, his skin against my own. I lost track of what my friends were saying when we hung out, trying to remember the exact scent of his skin– the perfect combination of cigarette smoke, soap, and
him
.
I was fucking obsessed, and it was getting
fucking ridiculous
.
My editor had some harsh words for me– told me to get my shit together, though not so kindly. She didn’t know the cause of my writer’s block, didn’t know what was holding me back from meeting my deadlines, and she didn’t care. I needed to fix it. Period. And I wanted to–
genuinely–
but the problem was, I didn’t know how to do that.
Actually. I had an idea.I had to have sex with Alex again to get my head back on straight. After our last encounter, I had written for days– amazingly, without stopping. Maybe if we had sex again, the writing would start back up.And, obviously, that was problematic. First, he wasn’t speaking to me, wanted nothing to do with me, I was sure. Secondly, I didn’t know if having sex with him was a good idea– if it would hurt him further, if he even wanted to– and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take that risk. And thirdly, if I had sex with him and the writing did continue, wouldn’t I need to keep having sex with him for it to keep going?When things only got worse– my obsession only growing, leaving me breathless and flustered and irate, nearly out of my goddamned mind and crawling up a wall– I knew I didn’t have a choice.I pooled my resources– connections of friends– and found out Alex was going to be attending the screening and afterparty of the pilot of some new HBO series, had been invited by some old friend who had worked on the music, and I got myself on the list for the party.I spent the whole day of the screening a nervous wreck, and then started drinking. It steadied my nerves enough for me to do my makeup– a smoky, sultry eye and dark, red lip– and curl big Hollywood pin-up waves into my hair. Just before my cab arrived, I pulled on my new black dress– fitted and simple, with a plunging neckline– and hurried out the door.
The party took place at a massive, five star hotel overlooking the High Line and the river. The lounge had massive, panoramic views, and a dark, red-orange, chandelier of a bar on the top floor– like an intergalactic,
Mad Men
set. I got myself a drink upon arriving, and wound my way around the room, feeling like I was hunting for Alex like an animal, feeling almost ashamed of myself for doing so.
But when I couldn’t find him after several laps, my shame turned to desperation. What if he wasn’t here at all– had skipped the party all together?I felt something close to panic inch up my throat, my skin crawling at the idea of not seeing him, when I spotted him at the bar.My intention had been to flat out seduce him by whatever means– walk straight up to him, grab his dick, shove my tongue down his throat– but when I began walking up to him at the bar, all of my bravado evaporated into thin air.I looked like a pinup vixen– with my curls, my make-up, my cleavage– but when his eyes turned and landed on mine, face subtly but immediately transformed into one of anger, I felt meek and pathetic.“Hi,” was all I ended up saying.“What are you doin’ ‘ere?” he asked, his jaw tense, eyes practically blazing.I didn’t know how to respond, suddenly regretted what I was trying to do. I faltered, trying to speak, practically choking on my tongue.He stopped me, swooping in close to me, lips tickling the hair by my ear as he whispered, “Did you come ‘ere so I would fuck you?”My face went red with mounting embarrassment and immediate arousal. What the hell had I been thinking?I made to turn from him, to leave, but he grabbed my arm, pulled me back to him, mouth close to my ear again, saying: “I thought you were desperate at the bar, but it seems you’ve reached a new low.”
He’s being mean on purpose,
I tried to tell myself, my skin hot with rage, with tears that were threatening to fall.
He’s just hurt.
Pulling myself free, I cut my way through the crowd, to the elevator. My stomach hurt from our interaction– from the feeling of frustration and shame and hurt commingling in my body– and I was sure I was going to cry, was going to make a tar-like mess of my stupid, smokey eye.The worst part of all? I knew I deserved it.I choked on my own emotions when Alex grabbed my hand and pulled me into the empty elevator, pressing a button for the floor below us. Ignoring him, I pressed the one for the ground floor.
“You can’t play with people like this,” he said to me, sounding slightly more like himself as he backed me into the far corner of the elevator, eyes bearing down on me like an animal.
I was so frightened of crying in front of him– of being vulnerable in front of him in any way– that I let my hurt morph into anger, shoved him backward with both hands, sending him stumbling as I said, “
Play
with people? Who’s been playing me into their hands since the first moment we
met
?!”
He laughed, the sound so acidic it burned, and he said, “You’re mad.”The elevator opened on the floor below us and he stormed out of it, down the hallway, and I was so enraged that I followed, continued yelling at him.
“You just stroll up to a
fan
in a bar and drunkenly fuck them?” I said, keeping up with his long, angry strides. “And then come back for more. And you expect that to become some kind of intimate and serious relationship– expect me to believe that’s what you
want
?”
He was stopping at a door, his whole body tensed, livid as he unlocked it with a key card, not saying a word.I was on a roll, pushed by the current of my anger like a tidal wave, and I followed him into the hotel room, let the door slam shut behind me.
“Why would anyone expect a
relationship
from you?” I spit out, unthinking, senseless, charged frustration pushing words out of me like a fist. “When you would go and fuck any girl that’s willing?”
He was seething when he rounded on me, grabbed both of my upper arms in his vice-like grip, face close to mine and said: “I don’t want
anything
from you anymore.”
His words landed against my chest like an anvil.“Oh yeah?” I countered, cocking my head, trying to seem unbothered. “That’s not what it seemed like at the bar.”His eyes scanned my face, his whole body still strung tight with anger, hands still gripping me painfully. I felt the ever-present current of heat between us spring to life, saw him fight against it, struggling, and then he let me go, walked across the room, furiously shrugged off his jacket.“I don’t think this is just sex for you anymore,” he said, coming back, stopping a couple of feet from me. His words were still angry, but now infused with self-righteousness. “I think you’re fooling yourself.”My body reacted by going cold, panic coating my throat as I shook my head. “You don’t know me very well.”
“Oh, I think I do,” he replied. “You can fuck anyone. Why insist on fucking
me
?”
I scoffed, rolled my eyes. “Are you fishing for a compliment?”
“You ‘ave feelings for me,” he said softly, teasingly– his tone like a schoolyard bully– coming right back up to me and running a gentle finger down the rim of my neckline, skin whispering against skin. “You only
feel
summat with
me
.”
I hadn’t had sex with anyone since my ex, but I had also never felt anywhere near what Alex made me feel with anyone– ever. I couldn’t admit this though, so I just said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”His hand was at the bottom hem of my dress, pulling it up inch by inch. Though my blood was pulsing, anticipating his touch, I slapped his hand away, whole body radiating waves of hot anger.
He smirked, and it enraged me further, made me turn to the door to leave, but he grabbed my wrist, pulled me back so hard that I spun and landed against him, felt that he was growing hard under his suit pants. His hands were on my waist, pinning me to him, and I squirmed against it, half-heartedly trying to fight as his lips descended on my jawline, my neck.
“Fuck you,” I growled, trying so hard not to come undone, the conflict raging with the beat of my heart against my breast bone.His hot tongue flicked against my earlobe though, and it made me breathless, lightheaded, weak.He knelt down in front of me suddenly, pulled up the hem of my dress, buried his head under the skirt, mouth pressed against the fabric of my underwear, kissing the center of my pulse, making me gasp.He stood too quickly, kissed my lips, hands on my waist, and he whispered, “You need me.”I shook my head.“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”“No,” I replied, and I hated how breathless and choked my voice sounded.His hand went between my legs, over my dress, and I couldn’t help but lean into him, delirious from the look of satisfaction on his face.
“You
like
me.”
“No.” Blood was rushing through my veins, making me ache against his touch.“You want me.”
“N-No.”
He was rubbing me harder, and it was everything I could do to stay upright, as the friction sent chills all over my body.
“You do.”
I shook my head, eyes flickering shut against my control.
“But you want me to fuck you.”
I nearly collapsed against him, the pleasure rising, making a quiet cry slip from my throat: “Yes.”“Well, I’m not going to.”He pulled away so suddenly that I nearly stumbled forward, feeling like I’d been doused in hot water, scalded.“That’s not how it works, Kat,” he said, sounding stern as he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at me from across the room.My blood was rushing too fast for me to stop myself, I was aching too deeply for him to turn back, so I walked right up to him, unzipping the side of my dress, letting it fall to the floor. I felt a hum of satisfaction as his breathing picked up speed slightly, as he looked deep in concentration, trying to maintain the upper hand, trying to fight his own arousal.His lips parted in anticipation though, his resolve slipping with the slightest hint of a smile, as I knelt in front of him, hands on his knees.“How does it work then?” I asked, fingers fluttering to his belt, undoing it.He didn’t respond, just stared at me and breathed deeply, eyes focused and intense.
“You think you don’t play with me too?” I teased, yanking open the fly of his pants. “You think what you’re doing
isn’t
playing with me?”
“That’s different, Kat,” he said gruffly, his breath catching further as I grasped his dick.“Is it?” I asked, working him up and down slowly, watching him falter. “‘Cause it feels the same.”I built him up, lowered my mouth to him, took all of him between my lips, working him with my tongue, and then I released him, stood up abruptly, grabbed my dress from the floor.I was halfway to the door when he was behind me, grabbing my body to him, fly open against my naked back, breathing harshly behind my ear.
“What are you doin’ to me, Kat?” he implored, his voice rough. “What are you
doin’
?”
For a moment, I almost felt bad for him, like he would be better off if I just left him alone, but then his hands were reaching around me, grasping both of my breasts, sucking almost painfully at the skin behind my ear. His movements were furious again– whether from a deep lust for me, or from pure anger and frustration, I couldn’t tell– but it sent a heat wave over my body that made me feel like the floor had given way.He pressed his dick more fervently against me, making my vision vibrate as his hands slid slowly down my sides, gripping my ass.When he spun me around and smashed his lips to my own, my stomach turned to liquid. I buried my hands in his hair, pulled hard, overcome with the need to control the situation. He sucked hard at my bottom lip in return, pulled away furiously.“If I’m going to fuck you, I’m going to fuck you proper,” he whispered, eyes hooded and smoldering with anger still.I didn’t have any time– or the capacity– to respond. He backed me up to the bed, hands burning against my hips, clutching, until the mattress hit the backs of my legs, and I sat down against my will. He pushed me back, knelt in front of me, hooked his fingers in my thong and pulled it off. Gruffly, he pushed my knees open, teeth grazing the length of my thigh, making me hiss in agonizing pleasure.He dove against me, sending me into a sitting position, hand grabbing a fistful of his hair. His tongue was inside me, moving almost violently intent, and my vision went hazy as my eyes shut, my head thrown back. I arched up to meet him, bucked against his fervent mouth, against the flick of his tongue on my clit, making the heat rise to meet me.I could feel it spreading across my limbs– hot-cold pleasure, toes curling, pins and needles all over me– and he worked with me as I rode into it, built the perfect rhythm, the perfect crescendo, until my orgasm pinned me back into the bed, two hands buried in his hair, holding him for dear life as the spasms of pleasure peeked, and then subsided.My breath was ragged as he kissed his way up my body, to my neck, along my jawbone– taking his time.I grabbed his neck, eyes blazing into his, and I whispered, “I want you.”His lips curled back in a smile, and he pushed his pants down, until he was leaning over me naked. He dove down, took my breast in his mouth, tongue swirling, making me see stars.Resurfacing suddenly, he whispered in my ear: “Say it again.”“I want you,” I implored, “to fuck me.”His fingers ghosted downward, pushed me open, pressed against me. I squirmed under him, wanting more.“Alex,” I huffed.“What do you want?”
“
You
,” he was building the heat again, pleasure swirling below his fingers, and I couldn’t make sense of anything but what he did to me.
But he was teasing me– just like he always did– and I couldn’t take it anymore, this lack of control, this need for more. So, I pulled him down onto the bed while he was distracted trying to get me off, mounted him like an animal.His eyes burned looking up at me, jaw tight as I slid against his dick, maneuvered him inside of me.“Fuck,” he huffed, losing control for a moment, making me smile. But then his fingers were back, rubbing my clit, and I grabbed his wrists, pinned them to his sides as I rode him, his dick filling me up and making me moan, over and over.
“
Alex
.”
He bucked once underneath me, making me cry out, and then he did it again, and I thought I would dissolve from the building pressure, the perfect motion of it. But it was the sight of him– so locked in on
me
, so intent and lovely, his perfect hair a perfect mess, coming out of its hold, his dark eyes feverish– that made me come again, crying his name, faltering.
It was the loss of rhythm as I shook apart that made it possible for him to pull me to him, roll on top of me with his dick still inside me.“God, you’re so lovely when you come,” he whispered, leaning next to my ear, sending my skin into goosebumps.He drove himself into me, harder, and I was so overly sensitive that my blood was automatically in a rush. And when he crushed his lips to mine, tongue against my own as he thrust, an errant thought entered my mind.
I love him.
I knew it was true as our eyes locked, as my body responded to his like it could never recognize anyone else, as my skin finally felt at home only against his skin. The thought, his movements, the driving force of our chemistry, sent me crash landing into yet another orgasm, tightening around him, whole body going warm, relaxing with a moan as he thrust once more, falling against me, into his own orgasm with a deep, low groan.He was still inside me, and we were both recovering, when the panic replaced my calm like quiksilver, setting my whole body on cold fire.I couldn’t love him. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to get hurt again.
Fuck
.
My anxiety mounted like an eruption, my pulse rocketing into my skull, making my vision go spotty with fear. When he peeled himself away from me, I didn’t wait to see if he would stick around– if he would even look at me.Instead, I grabbed my dress and yanked it on– abandoned my underwear somewhere on the floor– and left the room before I could even sort of get my head on straight.In the elevator, next to an old woman and a young couple, I breathed raggedly through my nose, holding my shoes in hand. And when I got down to the sidewalk, I got into a cab and went home before I could throw up from sheer panic.And with the city streets passing by the window, I battled with my desire to flee from my own abject terror, and the feeling that I had just fucked everything up even more for myself.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Seventeen
Those Lumps in Your Throat
After seeing Alex at the hotel, I walked around Brooklyn for weeks, the winter thawing around me, feeling like a zombie. I had trouble writing, eating, sleeping, even
thinking
straight. Somehow, I subsisted on coffee in the morning, and vodka at night. And then after a couple of weeks, Alex texted, and then called, reached out multiple times. But I didn’t read his texts, or listen to his voicemails. I felt sick to my stomach and terrified almost always at the thought of him. While part of me was aching for him, to just talk to him, sit with him, hold his hand, a bigger part of me was putting him in my ex boyfriend’s position, and I didn’t think I could handle that level of hurt again– not coming from Alex– and the only way to avoid that would be to distance myself from him. So I did.
It was cloudy and gray, a cool rain dripping from the sky around dusk, when I heard a knock at my door while futilely trying to write. I looked up from the couch where I sat with my laptop, eyes trained on the door like it might explode open.I didn’t move. My heart pounded.Another knock, and my stomach twisted.“Kat.”It was Alex. The moment I heard him knock, I knew it was.“Kat, open the door,” he sounded sad, worried, stern.I froze where I was, hardly daring to breathe. I wanted to get up and let him in, let him wrap his arms around me, drag him to my bed, but I shuddered thinking of our last encounter– the thought of loving him, and losing him.“Kat, I don’t understand what’s goin’ on,” his voice sounded deeper, softer, through the door. “But I want to talk. I miss you and I want to fix this.”The tears came without warning, closing up my throat, burning behind my closed eyelids.“Won’t ya let me in, Red?”A silent sob hit my chest as tracks of tears slid down my face. I stood up and walked to the door, leaned my ear against it, pressed both palms to its cool surface.“You were right.”His words made me look at the door, brows furrowed though my eyes were streaming.“Nothin’ about what I did when I first met you said I wanted a relationship,” he said. “And I didn’t. I thought it were a one night stand– just a pretty girl to have fun with.”I held my breath, losing feeling in my fingers and toes, head spinning.“But, bleedin’ ‘ell, Kat,” he sounded like he was leaning against the door too, his voice strangled in pain. “Can’t you tell that I love you?”
I stepped back from the door like I’d just been burned, heart shooting into overdrive almost immediately.
Oh God, I love him
, I thought, missed him so damn much, wanted nothing more than for him to say what he just said. But this was worse. Because accepting this would mean embedding ourselves into each other’s lives, becoming dependent on one another, being vulnerable, planning a life together– and the likelihood of either of us getting hurt became only that much greater, losing the love and that beautiful life only multiplied.
My chest tightened around my thumping heart, and I backed away from the door.I stared at it for several minutes, not saying anything, hardly breathing, until I heard his footsteps recede down the hallway, and I collapsed on the couch, gasping for breath, sobbing.
About a week later, I was leaving a miserable lunch meeting with my editor– still not recovered, struggling against my editor’s frustration now too– when I heard someone say my name.
I recognized the voice as my ex’s, and it made me froze. I contemplated ignoring him, continuing on my way, breaking out into a flat out run, but I turned and faced him, against my better judgement.
“How are you?” he asked, walking right up to me on the sunny, spring sidewalk, so close I could smell him– a scent that had once meant love, and comfort, and
hom
e, that now made me sick– and he smiled.
“Fine,” I replied, and my voice was flinty– would have been possible to sharpen a knife against it.“You’re not still mad, are you?” he asked, and his voice was almost tauntingly self-assured, disgustingly condescending.I didn’t respond. Anxiety was clawing up the sides of my stomach like an animal, and I felt sick from the fact that he still had this effect on me, this power, this control.
“Come on, Kat,” he laughed– actually
laughed–
and my whole body went rigid in rage. “Can’t we be mature about this?”
“
Mature
?” I finally spit out, right on the sidewalk, as people passed us on both sides, feeling like I was spiralling around a toxic drain– like I was trapped in a surreal nightmare. “You want to be
mature
?”
I was seeing our relationship as if it was on a reel– something I had fought to stop doing months ago–but it was clicking away in my brain again now. How he was so charming and confident, sweeping my dorky, writer-girl ass off my feet my freshman year of college. How he charmed every single one of my friends and family, how we built a life together, made plans for the future, laughed and cried and shared everything– right down to the abandonment issues and anger I felt for my dad leaving us– and we grew up together.I thought of how we graduated and moved to the city together, but lived separately, for just a year, to get used to adulthood. I remembered days and days passing one winter where I worried that I was pregnant, where I cried into his arms, and he said we would have it, that nothing would make him happier, that we would get married. When it proved to be a false alarm, he asked me to move in with him anyway.I shook, thinking of those last weeks, where we bought things to make his apartment our first home, where we joked about being like a married couple– about cuddling on our couch and getting snowed in together, playing hooky and having sex instead.
And then I went to Greece for a week with Bree, just before we were set to sign our lease. I called him when I got home, to see him, excited to spend the night with him after a week apart and spotty cell phone reception. And he didn’t answer. Instead, he texted me, and he broke up with me. Said he was in love with my
cousin
.
It felt so pathetic and cliche, but at the time– and still– it felt like my world had imploded. I had built everything around him, had leaned on him, loved him,
trusted
him, after a childhood where I couldn’t depend on my own father once he left. My ex had been my best friend, and he fucked me over, abandoned me, hurt me in a way I never thought anyone I knew so well and loved so much could.
“You dumped me with a text message!” I hated how hurt my voice sounded, slightly hysterical, but I was unraveling, and I couldn’t stop it.“What did you expect from me, Kat?” he countered. “You had just spent a week in Greece– I was in love with someone else.”Nothing he said made sense– nothing connected into a justification– but he didn’t care. He was still untouchable, he could still do no wrong in his own eyes, and I hated that he still had the ability to make me question myself.“God, you always were too much,” he scoffed.Too much.I was breathless– like someone had just punched me straight in the windpipe– because he was somehow making this my fault, my overreaction. Tears threatened to burn behind my eyes, so I blinked furiously, refusing to cry in front of him.“Kelsey and I just got a place in the Village,” he was saying, and it felt like the words were pinching me in slow motion, hardly making sense, but hurting just the same. “Maybe you can come to our housewarming party.”He pushed past me, down the sidewalk, and I felt myself begin to vibrate from trying not to cry.
I didn’t think on the subway, or walking down the street. I concentrated solely on not crying, not throwing up. But my whole body felt the full force of the impact of seeing him– and I was shaking, my skin scrawling, feeling so dazed, but so sharply aware of my pain– as if I had just been hit by a truck.
When I got off at a stop that wasn’t my own, I still wasn’t thinking, but it wasn’t a mistake.I kept it together the whole walk from the subway stop, just shaking in the bright sunlight, throat tight against the strain of tears. But when I rang the buzzer once, twice, three times, and there was no answer, I began to fall apart. The tears fell before I could stop them, stomach clenching in pain, and I leaned against the doorframe.What was I doing, standing outside of Alex’s apartment building, shaking and crying? I didn’t deserve to be comforted by him, didn’t even know if he would turn me away or not when I rang.But it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t home, and I would have to go back to my own apartment, turn around and lick my wounds alone.“Kat?”I turned and met his eyes, seeing his shape through the blur of my tears. And he didn’t say anything else, didn’t turn me away like I deserved. Instead, he walked right up to me and pulled me into his arms.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eighteen
Call Off the Search I felt hysterical, like everything was coming to a peak in my mind, and I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop blubbering. In my head, there was my ex, my father, Alex, a loop of deceit and betrayal and abandonment. There was the pull to give myself up to Alex, to be vulnerable with him, to let him have all of me and take that risk. But the pain and fear of the risk was too much– was mating itself to memories with my ex, my father. I saw myself finding comfort and purpose and happiness with Alex, telling him all of my deepest fears, letting him soothe me, cradle me, love me every night. And then I envisioned a suitcase by the front door. I felt the world giving out beneath me and having nothing left, being shocked with the truth– he doesn’t love me anymore, he doesn’t need me anymore, everything I built up in my mind and heart was just that– mine alone, and I was left cold and shattered.Alex held me while I spiraled, crying like a baby, and he rubbed my back, stroked my hair, didn’t say a word until the worst had subsided.“Talk to me, Red,” he finally whispered. “What’s wrong?”I shook my head, finally sitting up, the embarrassment cracking over my head like a runny egg. I swiped at my eyes, my messy face, and I tried to compose myself.“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I shouldn’t have come here– I’m an idiot–”I was standing up already, reaching for my things, ready to make my way to the door, but he grabbed my hand, pulled me back to the couch.“‘Ey,” he was saying. “Don’t be sorry. Talk to me.”His big, brown eyes were searching mine desperately, and it was so different from the last time I had seen him. I had seen anger, fire, lust and frustration in his eyes. I was scared of his anger and intensity at the hotel, turned on by it. But now, he was soft, open, and he hadn’t turned me away like I deserved– he was desperate to help me, to comfort me. And I remembered his voice through my apartment door.
Bleedin ‘ell, Kat. Can’t you tell that I love you?
The memory helped for some reason– where it had made me anxious before– and I spoke. “I saw my ex,” I told him, my voice soft and weak as I looked at my hands. “It was bad.”Wordlessly, he swept my hair behind my ear, reassuring me, urging me to keep talking.I met his eyes again, and I said, “If it wasn’t for him, things wouldn’t be so fucked up between us, Alex.”He gave me a small, sad smile, and he replied, “I don’t see ‘im ‘ere, do you?”The feeling of his hands on me, his sweet, dark eyes, the closeness and comfort of him– and the knowledge that I did love him, that he loved me– pushed me to speak.“Alex, I’m sorry for everything I’ve done,” I shook my head. “It’s so cliché, and it’s not an excuse, but– I’ve had my heart broken– I’ve been hurt more than once and I’m just– I’m scared .”I whispered the last of it, and he looked as if he was in pain for me. But he was confident and reassuring when he said, “You don’t need to explain ‘eartbreak to me, love– You don’t ‘ave to justify it.”The pain of seeing my ex was receding from my body– slowly– and was being replaced with the realization of how close Alex was, how warm his hands felt comforting me, and I met his eyes, saw the current of energy spring into life between us.“I want to be with you,” I said, voice still low and quiet, feeling charged by my desire for him, by how truly patient and good he had been with me when I didn’t deserve it one bit. I felt the wall between us chipping away– and I wanted it gone, wanted to be pulled to the other side now. He was just going to have to work to make it happen. “But you’re going to have to give me some time.”I was reaching for the buttons of his shirt as I said it, watching the smile, the relief, the adoration fill his face at my words.“I can do that,” he whispered back, eyes roving my face in appreciation, hand reaching to cup my jaw.I closed the space between us, kissed him earnestly, and it was like coming home it felt so right. His warm, strong arms encircled me, pulled me to him, and I could still feel the cold, dried tears on my face, but none of it mattered in that moment– I had forgotten everything but him , once more.It had been weeks since we had seen each other, touched at all– and the way he was touching me now, fervent but careful, lovingly , was entirely brand new. It set my mind on fire, made my body pulse with a new kind of heat, made the desire mingle with a nervousness that felt like butterflies.His eyes locked on mine as he eased me back against the pillows on the couch, fingers gentle and sure as they undressed me, pulling off each article of clothing slowly and carefully. When my naked body lay before him, I thought I was going to lose it from the building need, but he was looking at my body, from head to toe, like I was made from gold, his hands running all over me, making me sigh, as if he was trying to memorize the feeling of me.I pulled his t-shirt off, and he smiled, swooped down to kiss me once more, lips finding their way to my neck, down my collarbone. His lips and tongue and teeth worked against my body, driving my senses wild, making me thrum with the rush of my blood as he moved downward.When he kissed my clit, so gentle, almost reverent, I moaned slightly, hand going to his hair, clutching.“Alex,” I whispered, begging him, but he was still careful, tongue moving so slowly against me that stars danced behind my eyelids, my breath caught in my throat like a butterfly in a cage.His hands clutched at my hips, my ass, digging his fingers into my flesh, as if he couldn’t handle the moment either, and then his mouth was more intent, devouring me, and I was crying his name, pulling at his hair almost painfully, but I couldn’t stand it.He groaned against me, enjoying the moment as much as I was, and I felt the vibrations against my clit, up my spine. When I arched against him, needing a release, the pressure building too much to fight it, his fingers were inside me, reaching, and I was gasping, shaking, and he pushed me into an orgasm in moments, and he didn’t stop until I was left panting against the couch, utterly breathless.“Alex,” I said, when he returned to kiss me, smirking, and I touched him, undid his pants, pushed them off in a hurry.“You want more, love?” he whispered, hot words against my lips, and I could tell my eyes were blazing with fire, with the need for more of him, all of him.I nodded fervently, tongue pressing between his lips, hungry. His hands were clutching at my breasts as we worked off his pants, as his naked body lay flush against mine, burning me with desire.Without warning, I climbed into his lap, pressing my body to his, easing him into me, and he was sighing, smiling, whispering my name. We built the perfect rhythm like that, upright on the couch, and the look in his hooded eyes, the way he gazed at me– I knew he loved me, and I knew I could give myself over to him. I knew then that it would happen, that we would be together, I just didn’t know how or when.As the pitch built higher and higher, both of us gasping, groaning, moaning, clutching at each other like we would never have enough, our mouths collided and worked messily and hungrily. And when we came simultaneously, sounds escaping into each other’s open mouths, I hoped we would be together soon– that I would shed the rest of my baggage and let myself be his completely.Later, when we were in his bed after Chinese food and beer, and I was dressed in his t-shirt and boxers, he pulled me to him and spoke into my hair.“I’m going home this weekend, for a few days,” he said. “To England.”I was surprised, and a little sad.“It’s Dad’s birthday, and I booked it on impulse last week,” he didn’t have to say ‘when we weren’t speaking’ but it was implied. “Come with me.”I looked at him in bed, searching his eyes, and he was smiling like a child.“I don’t know if that’s what needing time means,” I said, heart racing with excitement, more than anxiety.“Come meet Mum and Dad,” he whispered, kissing my questioning face. “Come see where I had my first gig, where I grew up.”I didn’t know what to say, but it felt like Mexico– I felt drawn to come with him, to say yes no matter what.“Come to Sheffield with me, Kat.”He looked so earnest, so excited by the idea, that I couldn’t help but give in to what we both wanted and say, “Okay,” with a stupid smile on my face.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chapter Nineteen
Sorta Hopin’ that You’d Stay
Alex and I took a red eye to Manchester that Thursday, and landed in England early Friday morning. The sun hadn’t fully risen, and everything was gray and misty when we got there, and we passed out in our Manchester hotel room until nearly noon. With the sun up, though hidden by a layer of clouds, we walked around Manchester until we found ourselves a full English breakfast and a pot of coffee, before getting a car for the drive to Sheffield.On the highway I was fidgety with nerves, messing with the radio, my phone, my clothes– until Alex reached over and grabbed one of my hands, squeezing it reassuringly.“You ‘ave nothin’ to worry about.”My stomach felt weak, and I looked over at him, driving through the English countryside, confident and self-assured. His hair was undone, falling into his eyes rather than gelled and slicked back into a quiff. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans under his peacoat. He looked comfortable and at home. I felt like a frazzled mess in comparison.“This is a big deal,” I replied, and even I couldn’t miss the note of hysteria in my voice.Alex looked over at me, his crooked smile distracting me momentarily, before he said, “I didn’t even tell them you were comin’– if it’s too much we can go back to the ‘otel and I’ll see them for Dad’s birthday tomorrow– you can spend the day sightseein’ in Manchester or writin’ or whatever you’d like if you don’t want to come.”It helped abate my anxiety– that I had the choice, wasn’t trapped, could turn and run if it became too much– and I felt that now-familiar surge of affection for Alex again, and his patience.I leaned over the center console to kiss him on the cheek, which surprised him, and I said, “Thank you,” before keeping our hands laced for the rest of the ride.
Sheffield turned out to be both modern and historic. As Alex showed me some of his old haunts, I saw industrial streets that looked like they could be New York, and others that were very old and very British. He showed me the closed-down venue he used to work at during the early Arctic Monkey days, bought me a drink and real fish ‘n chips at his favorite downtown pub, wandered around and took silly selfies with me at Sheffield’s tourist spots. And then he pulled me into a rather nondescript brick pub called “The Grapes” without any explanation– just a nervous smile and overwhelming aura of excitement from him telling me this place was important.
It was late afternoon, and there weren’t many people sitting at the bar or in the tables of the main room, just a handful of people in the quiet, old-timey pub.Alex walked up to the bar, so I followed.“‘Ello,” he said to the bartender, nothing of the swagger or confidence I’d known from him, and I could suddenly see how he was years ago– just out of high school, earnest and polite and hopeful for his future, and my heart hurt for how much I loved him. “My band used to play ‘ere– years ago– I was wonderin’ if I could show me girlfriend the room upstairs we used to play.”Girlfriend. It felt so different hearing it this time– like I almost didn't mind.The man behind the bar hardly looked up from the drink he was making, and said, “Sorry, it’s not a venue anymore, mate.”Alex looked momentarily crestfallen, but he persisted. “That’s all right– I’d like to see it all the same.”“Ann!”An older woman with subtle lilac hair and round glasses came over from where she had been stocking bottles behind the bar and looked at Alex and I inquisitively.I guess I had been expecting Alex to drop his name, or the band’s name at the very least, to achieve his goal, to maybe turn on his swagger and insist on going upstairs. Instead, he was deferential, polite, almost desperate with hope when he addressed the little old lady, and I was surprised.“‘Ello mum,” he said. “My band used to play ‘ere– I know it’s not a venue anymore but I was ‘opin’ to show me girlfriend upstairs– It was where me band had our first show.”I felt the importance of it at that moment– why he so desperately wanted to show me upstairs. He wanted to share the memory, the nostalgia, the importance of his first show with me.“I’m sorry, love,” Ann replied. “It’s a lounge now– just me family’s furniture.”“Please, I don’t mind at all,” Alex said quickly. His eyes were big and hopeful, his tone so earnest. He looked like a little kid, and I took his hand because of the overwhelming affection I felt for him.She considered him for a moment, and I could tell she didn’t recognize him. Her eyes landed on me, our interlaced fingers, and she smiled, saying, “All right, love.”She took us upstairs, into a family living room. There was deep red wallpaper, three sofas, and a mantle with family photos on it. I couldn’t imagine a band playing in it, let alone an audience fitting to watch, but Alex stared around the room in wonder, looking almost misty-eyed.“This is amazin’,” he said.Ann looked around, amused, “Don’t look very much like the old venue, do it?”Alex shook his head. “Do you remember any of the bands that performed here?”She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Good kids– the lot of them.”He didn’t say who he was, even then, just walked around the room, soaking it in.“This were the first place we ever played,” Alex said, sounding very much like he was in awe of her living room. “The first gig we ever ‘ad a real paying audience.”“Are you still in music then?”Alex nodded. “Yeah.”“That’s lovely,” she replied, looking toward the door back downstairs. “Take a couple more minutes, love– I’ve got to pop back down.”When she was gone Alex pulled me into his arms in the middle of the living room, still looking around in wonder.
“This is unreal,” he said. “It’s so different.”
“I can’t believe you played here,” I replied. “It’s so tiny.”He laughed, “It weren’t a big audience– but it was perfect.”Looking up into his open face, the look of awe and happiness, and nostalgia shining in his eyes, I was overwhelmed once again with affection for him– for the boy he used to be. I thought of scrawny, awkward, baby Alex, playing in this room, happy to be making music, happy to have any venue, any audience. I thought of the Alex that ran wild down these Sheffield streets, becoming the man who held me in his arms, made me feel amazing even when I didn’t think it was possible– even when I didn’t let him. I thought of his childhood, his family, his whole life, and I wanted to submerge myself in it suddenly.“Can I meet your parents?” I whispered, as if the walls of The Grapes might collapse at my words.Alex just smiled slowly and nodded, closing the space between us to kiss me deeply.
Alex’s childhood home was located on a quiet street in High Green, made with warm brick and a worn terracotta roof, surrounded by a wooden fence. The anxiety returned as we pulled into his parents’ driveway, but he was holding my hand as we walked to the front door, when his parents greeted us in the entranceway, so surprised and pleased and genuinely warm upon seeing me. They ushered us inside, and gave us tea, and cookies, and they joked and laughed, and pulled me into the circle of their family so easily that I felt like I knew them for years.
His mother asked me questions about work without being nosey, fangirled slightly when I told her about my published books. She had heard of them, her girlfriend’s daughter had been obsessed with them in secondary school, and she insisted I give her an autograph for her. Alex’s dad poked fun at her for it, poked fun at Alex, poked fun at me, laughing so warmly– from his belly– that you couldn’t help but laugh with him. And before I knew it, Alex’s mom was cooking dinner, and we were all drinking wine and eating a roast lamb, and I hadn’t felt so content, or at-home in years.After dinner we went into the sitting room while Alex’s parents insisted on cleaning up. Mr. Turner had put on a Frank Sinatra album, and it filtered through the house as I circled the sitting room, looking at the pictures of baby-toddler-teenager Alex adorning the walls, sipping a new glass of wine. In the privacy of the sitting room, Alex came up behind me and circled his arms around my waist, burying his face in my neck.“What are you thinkin’, love?” he asked against my skin.The wine, his parents, the old-fashioned wallpaper were all making me feel warm and content, and I smiled, saying, “I’m thinking you were a cute-ass baby.”He laughed, the wine making him loose and content as well, and kissed my neck, before going and sitting on the cream-colored sofa with his glass.“I’m glad you came,” he said from where he sat, gazing at me.I was about to tell him I was glad I came too, but then his mom was coming into the room with a plate of cookies and more wine, and she was insisting on showing me home videos of Alex singing as a child, and I dove in head first while he protested.It was well past midnight when we called it a night– after Alex’s mom and I couldn’t stop laughing about his toddler home movies, waddling around and tripping over himself in a diaper, on the floor of their sitting room. We were both pink-cheeked and teary-eyed, and Alex was moaning from the couch while his dad looked on in amusement. When we realized the time, we were both too drunk, too clumsy and sleepy to drive back to Manchester, so Mrs. Turner offered to make up Alex’s childhood bed. I saw him look to me for approval– to see if that was something I was comfortable with doing– and I insisted on helping her without a second thought.When Alex’s parents had gone to bed, and we were alone in the soft light of his bedroom, I looked around, feeling like I was floating– feeling happier than I could remember being in a while– and I was worried it was only the wine.I looked at his bookshelf, with tattered paperback copies of ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’, old copies of NME, The Rolling Stones and Oasis on CD. I touched a finger to his Sheffield high school pennant, soccer flags, old photos, tacked to a corkboard, and I smiled at the sight of him as a kid, smiling from ear to ear.“Are you laughin’ at me?”He was behind me again, arms around me once more, kissing at the skin of my neck, softly, warm.I leaned against him, realizing I had been smiling, and I shook my head.“I’m glad you decided to stay,” he whispered, fingers squeezing lightly at my hips, his breath turning hot against me, making me tip my head back into his chest, press myself against him more closely. “I like seein’ you ‘ere, Red.”“I like being here,” I whispered, turning to face him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and pulling him down to kiss me– the whole day playing behind my eyelids, making me desperate for him suddenly.His mouth fell open immediately, tongue languid and measured against my own, making me clutch at his hair for more. He smiled against me, nipped at my bottom lip while his hands slowly roamed my body, sneaking their way up my shirt.“‘Aven’t had a girl up ‘ere in awhile,” he whispered cheekily, hands cupping my breasts, thumbs working around the material of my bra, rubbing gently at each nipple, making the breath hitch in my throat.I tugged hard at his hair in response to his words, smirking as I kissed him furiously, tongue darting between his lips, rushed. He responded in kind, clutching at me, pulling me to him and easing me back onto the bed.“Want ya,” he sighed, as he pulled my clothes off, piece by piece, against the pillows of his childhood bed, kissing and sucking at every inch of exposed skin he could find as he went. The blood fluttered all over my body, made me feel hot and restless, and in need of so much more, and I yanked his shirt off too, desperate.His hands fluttered against the material of my underwear, barely there, teasing me through the fabric, and I arched my back against him, hissing his name. He tormented me for a moment, smirking, before rubbing at my clit firmly, through the cotton, making me bite my lip to keep from crying out. And then his mouth was on mine once more, and he was easing my underwear off, working me open with his fingers, sliding roughly against me, building a rhythm that made me moan quietly into his open mouth, spiraling in pleasure.“Want you to come, love,” he pulled away to say, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from making any noise as my orgasm flamed into life under his fingers, making me shake, making me clutch him to me like a lifeline, clenched in agonizing pleasure.I recovered just enough to pull him to the bed and climb on top of him, work his jeans and underwear off in one movement. He sighed as I straddled him, hands roving up my body, stopping to cup my breasts, releasing a quiet groan.I slid against his naked dick, making him shudder, making him suck in a sudden breath because of the mounting friction, before easing him inside of me. He looked hazy with the building pleasure, as I ground out a rhythm on top of him, working him slowly, watching his eyelids flutter once.When I touched myself on top of him, he practically moaned aloud, and he had to throw his head back into the pillows to look away from me– but then he was sitting up, easing me back into the bed once more, taking full control.The angle was too good when he thrust into me furiously, filling me up, and I had to cover my own mouth to keep from getting loud– but his fingers were against me now, rubbing my clit as he thrust, his hair falling into his eyes, and I didn’t think I could take it.
“Alex,
fuck
,” I hissed, nails digging into the skin of his back, out of control as fire licked at the backs of my eyelids, at the inside of my whole body.
I pushed him off of me suddenly– wanting to delay the end just slightly– and I turned around, pressed my back to his chest, ground backward against his dick, and he groaned, reached around to clutch both of my breasts.“What do you want me to do to you, Kat?”His asking always made my whole body tingle, and now wasn’t any different– and he could have done anything at that point and it would have sent me over the edge– so I didn’t answer.Without a word, just his breath coming out hot against my hair, one hand slid down my stomach, buried itself between my legs so that I felt the pleasure spike from his motions, from where he touched me. He worked me into a frenzy, one arm hooked around me, his nonsense words spilling into my hair, and I could feel him pressed against me– wanted him inside of me– so that I was nearly spasming against him once more.He waited until the last moment before he was entering me from behind, and I was down on my knees on the bed, panting, his dick thrusting, hitting the perfect spot, sending me crashing into an orgasm immediately, blanket pressed against my wide open mouth to muffle any sound.And as he thrust– as he lost all sense and began to spiral into his own orgasm– his sounds, and the feeling of him, of his hands, and his skin, and how much I knew I fucking loved him and everything about him and his life in Sheffield, made me come again, my whole body reacting– my brain going blank with pleasure and contentment. And then he was he coming too, pressed against my back, shuddering until he collapsed, heart pounding, breath frantic.It was several minutes before we recovered– when he reached over to turn the light out and pull my shaking, sweaty body to him in the dark. We tucked ourselves into the sheets of his twin bed, and he kissed my neck, the base of my skull, my shoulder, and he hummed Frank Sinatra against my skin. And I let myself sink into the comfort, and his embrace, and if I hadn’t fallen asleep in his arms, I might have told him I loved him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chapter Twenty
Love Buckles Under the Strain
I woke up in Alex’s childhood bed for the second morning in a row, slightly hungover. We had spent all of Mr. Turner’s birthday with Alex’s family, ending the night with dinner and drinks at the pub in town, and I was paying for it the morning after. But I had no regrets. I had had a blast with Alex and his parents, and some of their friends from town. We had laughed and sang and drank, and it felt right. And when Alex put his hand on my leg, or entwined his fingers with mine under the table throughout the night, slung his arm over the back of my chair, that felt right too, and I was beginning to feel more natural in accepting his affection– and the title of his girlfriend, though I hadn’t truly let myself
totally
give in to that yet.
“Are you awake?” Alex wrapped his arms around me from behind, whispering into my neck.I nodded. “M hm.”“‘ow do you feel about goin’ to Paris today?”I turned around to face him, incredulous. “What?”He smiled, looking rumpled and comfortable in the morning light streaming through the crack in the curtains of his bedroom window.“Miles has a show in Paris tonight,” he said. “I thought we could surprise him– and have a romantic day or two in France.”I stared at him for a minute, feeling like I was dreaming. I didn’t like to admit to myself that I was still a hopeless romantic– that there was a gooey, lovey mess under my jaded exterior. I had been a sap before my ex, and there was still a sap underneath my scorn– someone who wanted to be swept off their feet, and fought for. I had always envisioned spending my life with someone who made me laugh, who made my knees weak, who whisked me away for spontaneous, romantic trips, whose family I felt I could wholly belong to, and Alex was chipping away any exterior I had put up– was making me remember what I had wanted all along but had never had, and had successfully stamped down.I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to go to Paris with Alex– the most romantic city in the world, one I had never been to, with the person I wanted to let chip away at the rest of my reservations.With a slow grin, I nodded.“Yeah?” he said, his face lighting up with a smile as he pulled me in for a slow, sleepy kiss.
We said goodbye to Alex’s parents after breakfast, with lots of hugs and thank yous. Alex’s mother even gave me her number and insisted I give her a call to chat when we were back in New York. Then we grabbed coffee and drove back to Manchester to grab our things from the hotel and start the drive to London. We spent the three hours in contented silence, listening to the sound of lazy Beatles’s songs as we drove through the rain. It was late afternoon before we were finally able to catch the channel train from London to Paris, and I wrote on the ride while Alex dozed off beside me.
The sun was setting when we emerged from the Gare du Nord and grabbed a cab for our hotel. We were tired and hungry, but on the short cab ride, my eyes were glued to the pink-drenched city passing by my window. Paris felt different already– ancient and magical. The winding, cobbled streets, the tree-lined parks, the elegant cafés on each street corner. I felt anticipation like a sparkler in my stomach, and when we got to the hotel I almost wanted to stay out. But we didn’t have much time to get ready for the concert, and I felt grimy and exhausted, so I welcomed a shared shower with Alex and some time to do my hair and makeup.
Miles was playing a gig at a club in Bastille, and Alex got us tickets and drinks, and we watched from the crowd like any other concert-goers, dancing and singing and cheering like fools. And when the show was over, we went to Miles’s dressing room, and his face lit up at the sight of Alex.“Miles, this is Kat,” Alex said, putting a hand to my back once he and Miles pulled away from their hug.
Miles saw me, and his face fell briefly, but he recovered. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Kat,” he said. “I’ve ‘eard a lot.”
I was feeling unsettled suddenly. Miles didn’t seem like he disliked me– despite what he’d probably heard during the worst of mine and Alex’s relationship– but something in the fall of his face, in the tone of his voice, felt off.
“Mate, I’m sorry,” Miles said to Alex, his voice low. “I wish you told me you were comin’. Alexa is ‘ere.”I saw Alex’s face drop, and my stomach fell with it.“She’s ‘ere for some fashion thing,” Miles went on. “Came with a friend. We’re meetin’ for drinks at Pershing ‘all.”Alex shook his head. “That’s fine–”“You should come, mate,” Miles said. “You should both come.”“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said distractedly. “We’ll meet you there– All right? Great show, Mi,” and he was making his way out of the dressing room, grabbing my hand, pulling me down the hall, outside, and onto the sidewalk.
We were silent as we walked down the Bastille sidewalks in the dark, drunk and rowdy young people wandering around us, feeling garish in comparison to the shift in our mood. I followed him until we were on a main avenue, and then by the river again.
“Alex–”“I’m sorry,” he cut me off, stopping and standing by the Seine, under a dim streetlamp. “I shouldn’t ‘ave reacted like that– Miles shouldn’t ‘ave said anything in front of you.”I shook my head, and said, “What do you want to do? We don’t have to go– We can–”“No,” he ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t run away from her my whole life.”“Do you want to go?”He was silent, looking across the river for a long moment, before meeting my eyes again. He still didn’t say anything.“Alex, what happened with Alexa?” I asked quietly.He looked surprised, but not hurt or afraid, and he took my hand and started walking slowly along the river. I asked because I could feel he had been hurt– was still hurt– and I wondered if it was anything like my own broken heart. I wondered how he had gotten past it– or if he had at all.“I was so young when I met Alexa,” he began, collar of his leather jacket turned against the chilly breeze coming off the water. “I ‘ad never loved anyone like that– and that were it for me. I didn’t ever want anyone else– I wanted to give ‘er everything and for it to be forever.”I lost my breath momentarily, feeling like I was experiencing deja vu at his words– remembering just how I had felt about my ex during our time together. Without a word, I gave Alex’s hand an encouraging squeeze.He took a breath that was shakier than he probably knew, and he continued: “We moved to New York for ‘er to work on ‘er career over there and–” he shook his head, pursing his lips as he looked across the lights on the river. “Everything fell apart.”My heart pounded with his words, and I was thinking of the moment everything fell apart for me. I could remember it in encapsulated detail– like an episode of some TV show I would hold onto forever, against my will. Coming home from Greece, unsuspecting, the floor giving out underneath me at his texted words.“‘er MTV show weren’t doing well,” Alex was saying, pulling me from my own memories, mirroring his own feeling. “She ‘ad a tough go of it, and it felt like she were pickin’ fights– couldn’t cope.” He shook his head, kept going, “And then when it got cancelled and we went back to London, I was back on tour, and nothing really got resolved– I went back on the road and things felt shite. Like we weren't right anymore."My stomach clenched for him, at the residual pain in his voice.“I thought once the tour was over things would work out,” he said. “I ‘ad decided on ‘er, and that was all there was to it. Didn’t matter if it weren’t good– I ‘ad decided.”He was silent for several long moments, and we stopped walking, sat on a bench by the river. In the distance, I could see the Eiffel Tower, lit up with lacy, gold. Under any other circumstances it would have taken my breath away, but I was focused on Alex, reliving his pain with him, and I held his hand in my lap, pressed myself close to him on the bench. His arm went around me, but he still didn’t say anything as we looked over the water, at the diamond-like city lights.“What happened?” I finally whispered, giving his hand a stroke with my thumb.He waited another beat, before finally gearing himself up to answer: “She ended it. The whole first ‘alf of the tour I was a bloody wreck– we weren’t talkin’ all that much, and when we did it were a fight–” he shook his head and ran a hand nervously through his hair. “And then when we got back ‘round to London for a show she– I got back to our flat to see she ‘ad packed her things, and she sat me down and– and she ended it.”I could feel the pain rolling over him, and I could identify with it from my own experience– and even though I never would have asked to relive my own heartbreak, I wanted to take his pain away from him in any way I could.“We were both a cryin’ mess– she felt bloody awful– and then I ‘ad to leave for Scotland the next morning, and the rest of the tour,” he said. “That were in July.”“Oh, Alex,” I whispered into the cool, dark night. “I’m so sorry.”He shook his head, “I’m not goin' to pretend I weren’t a bloody mess after– I had to perform and do press, and I wanted to rip me fuckin’ ‘air out. She were goin’ around tellin’ everyone we were best mates still, but I adn’t ‘eard from ‘er in weeks– And I was sure I would never love anyone ever again– I ‘ad decided on ‘er, so what more could there be out there?”My chest felt tight at his words. I knew how he felt, but I also somehow worried– despite everything he had said and done these last months– that she was the only for him, that I could never measure up to that kind of love, and I felt anxiety at the thought of losing him.“I were gettin’ back on my feet,” he said, his voice low as he looked down at me. “Foolin’ around and finishin’ the tour and thinkin’ I would never be the same– until I met you.”I met his eyes and found that they didn’t look pained anymore, he was gazing at me, focused, and it took my breath away in an entirely different way.“I didn’t think I would ever feel this way again, Kat, but you proved me wrong,” he whispered. “I don’t know where I’d be if I ‘adn’t found you– I'm grateful every day for you.”I didn't know what to say in response. No one had ever said anything so open and honest and important to me before."I do love you, Red."
The wall was there, keeping me from saying it back– though I knew I felt it– so I kissed him, trying to convey to him how I felt in the only way I knew how. And when his arms encircled me, I knew he understood.
We went to a beautiful, exotic-looking bar near the Champs-Elysees, where we met Miles and a group of people nestled amongst giant ferns and banquette tables in a dimly lit dining room. I saw Alexa right away, looking gorgeous and exotic herself, in a shift dress and tights, sitting beside her date who looked vaguely familiar and famous, with a jaw that could cut glass. I could see she looked nervous underneath her veneer of chic, and I smiled at her as we approached.
After Alex and I greeted Miles, and had been introduced to everyone around the group, Alex gave Alexa a hug hello, and then I did too.“I’m Kat,” I told her, seeing how pained she looked too. “I don’t know if you remember me.”“I do,” she nodded. “From New York.”I nodded in return. “It’s nice to see you,” I told her genuinely. She was different from my ex, didn’t seem evil, or malicious. She and Alex had had problems, and she did what she felt she had to do. It had hurt him, but that hadn’t been her intention– and it had hurt her too, that much was clear.At my words, she seemed to soften slightly, her anxiety eased by a drop in the tension.Alex and I sat at the banquette with our drinks, and the ice melted between them as they talked about their lives, as a friendship slipped into place between them. And when we left, and Alex grabbed me around the waist to kiss my head as we waited for a car, I knew he had gotten closure– and I knew it had only made both of us better for it.“Do you want to be a tourist?” he asked, whispering into my hair.I nodded enthusiastically, and he smiled as we slipped into the cab.When I saw the Eiffel Tower this time, it did take my breath away, and when I stood underneath it, with Alex’s arm wrapped around me in the cold, night breeze, it felt unreal. We walked underneath it lazily, and I was speechless for several minutes.“I like seein’ things with you,” Alex said. “I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower a ‘undred times, but it’s different with you. It’s better.”I met his eyes and felt myself smiling.“'ow did you exist all this time, and I didn’t know?” he asked, a smirk playing at his lips. “I feel like I dreamed you up.”He leaned in and kissed me, and I snaked both of my arms under his leather jacket, pulling him to me for warmth, for more. His hand went to the base of my scalp, running against the roots of my hair, making my shiver as his tongue darted between my lips, teasing. Imperceptibly, he pressed the length of his body against mine, applying just a bit more pressure with his pelvis, where he was going hard, and I sighed against his lips.“Can we stop being tourists now?” I whispered, as he traveled down to lap at my neck with his mouth, over and over along my jawline, sending my mind reeling, my hands clutching at him.He nodded against me, catching my earlobe between his teeth momentarily, before he was pulling away, grabbing my hand and finding a cab, his eyes feverish as we slid into the back.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chapter Twenty-One
Mad Sounds In Your Ear
Paris glittered around us in the dark as the cab made its way back to our hotel. My body was humming with electricity before Alex even leaned towards me, lips on my ear, and his breath hot as he whispered, “I want ya, babeh.”It sent a shot of heat up my spine, and I couldn’t help but lean into his touch as he sucked on my earlobe, hands skimming the length of my thighs. His skin felt hot against my clothes, and I grabbed his hand, clutching at his fingers to keep from arching against him in the backseat. But he was nipping a trail from ear to collarbone, and it was making my head spin with rising desire, and he answered it with his free hand, pressed against the center of my lap.“Alex,” I sighed quietly, almost scolding, though he was kneading lightly against my clit, creating the slightest friction through the fabric, and I very quickly needed more.“You want more?” he whispered directly into my ear.I nodded, breathless, eyes fluttering closed as he inched the hem of my skirt back, buried his hand underneath the material, and pressed against me firmly. With his lips pressed to my ear, I could hear every hitch of breath, every sigh of arousal, and as he worked his fingers against me, inside of me, I heard every word he whispered.
“You goin’ to come for me, darlin’? Right here?”
I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t catch my breath, and the pleasure was building– his untamable desire for me, his mouth against mine, fingers inside me– and I turned my face, caught his lips with my own so I wouldn’t moan out loud.His tongue dove against mine just as my thighs tightened around his fingers, just as he fought to get me off. And I came with a silent cry between his lips, shuddering against the seat, indetectable in the throes of our kiss.Immediately, the fury of his mouth increased, and his lips worked against mine intently. He groaned, both hands going to my hair, keeping me pressed to him, until we were pulling up to the hotel, delirious.I was shaking as we walked to our room, heart careening wildly into my chest as he clutched my hand in his, as we waited for the elevator. Inside, alone, he pulled me to him, kissed me deeply, sensuously, slowly, before pulling away and saying, “I can’t wait to get you naked.”I pressed myself to him, could feel how hard he was, and I ground my pelvis to his just slightly, pulling away as the doors opened. Outside of our hotel room, he pulled out our key card, but I was clutching at the buttons of his shirt, and we stumbled into our room, a tangle of clutching limbs, our mouths finding each other automatically.He kicked the door shut behind us, helping me work his jacket and shirt off, guiding me backwards toward the bed. We fell back into the bedding, and the sound of his belt unbuckling sent me scrambling to pull my own shirt off– my skirt as well– until our bodies were pressed together, hot skin scorching hot skin, tongues fighting for control once more.“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned when he pulled back slightly, looking down at my moonlit body.I pushed him back against the pillows with a smile, kissing a faint trail down the center of his chest, around his navel, listening to the sound of his breathing picking up, his hips rising in anticipation. I rolled my tongue against him, around the head of his dick, making him sigh my name, and moved down his length slowly. I licked him obscenely, until the sounds he was making– desperate and pleading– reached a fever pitch, and then I rose up, taking all of him between my lips, against my tongue, making him moan loudly.“Oh, fuck, Kat,” he said roughly, head thrown back into the pillows. “You don’t know what you’re doin’ to me.”I knew, because I was even wet from the sounds he was making him, from the way he was shuddering beneath me, and I worked him up and down with my lips and tongue until he was panting, and then I pulled back, climbed on top of him and eased him inside of me.“Oh, god,” I cried, as he rose to fill me up, hands clutching at my hips, fingers digging into flesh.
“
Fuck
!”
We fit perfectly, our bodies rising and falling to meet one another, creating a heat that made me feel out of my mind in the best possible way. And when his hands trailed up to cup each breast, and I caught sight of his eyes on me, the black arousal and passion there, I thought I might unravel completely.He sat up then, one arm wrapped around me to keep me in place, and he kissed me. It was so simple, but so furious, that I moaned into his mouth, continued to grind against him, my clit pulsing with flickering heat. And he was bucking upward, filling me up again and again, slamming against me so that I saw stars, so that the heat sparked everywhere our skin connected. I felt myself tightening around him, and he could feel it too, and our breath was mingling, rising and panting together, our cries a call and response, until we came together, clutching one another, pressed against one another and panting.
When I woke up on our last morning in Paris I felt blissfully content. It was still early, and I could hear the sounds of pigeons and someone sweeping the street below our window. Alex’s body was warm, wrapped around mine under luxurious, duvet covers, and I was thinking about french coffee and a buttery croissant. The last thing I expected was to get a text from my ex. But when Alex was calling room service and I checked my phone, that was exactly what I found.
“Kat?”I didn’t say anything– so still shocked.“Kat? What’s wrong?”I shook my head and looked back down at my phone as he sat back down on the bed next to me. “My ex just– he invited me to his housewarming party with my cousin.”
Alex let out a steady breath.
I shook my head again, staring somewhere on the far wall, unseeing.“You don’t ‘ave to answer, love.”I didn’t say anything, just sat, thinking.Some of the links I still had to my ex had been broken these last couple of weeks. The closer Alex and I got, the less immediate he was. The pain wasn’t as harsh, the past further away. Alex was becoming so much more important– our relationship becoming something I could never have anticipated, and had never experienced with anyone. I knew I loved him, and it was blurring all of my ex’s sharpest edges. But, there was something that still stung– that still clung around him and made him stick to my periphery. It made me almost want to go to this housewarming party to show him how happy I was without him– to show him how much I didn’t need him and how much I didn’t care.“I’m going to go,” I decided out loud, and I met Alex’s eyes to see his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I want to go. Will you come with me?”Alex looked confused, unsure, but he agreed.